PESHAWAR: The Emirates Airlines, which suspended flights for Peshawar after the gun attack on a commercial flight last month, will resume its operations for the provincial capital today (Thursday), said the Civil Aviation Authority.

A CAA official told Dawn on Wednesday that the airlines’ management had formally informed the authority about resumption of flights for the city’s Bacha Khan International Airport.

He said the Etihad Airways would restart flights for the provincial capital from August 1 and that the CAA had got a formal information from the airline for the purpose.

The official said the Qatar Airways and three other Middle East-based airlines were already operating flights for Peshawar.

He said the Emirates Airlines, which used to operate five flights a week to and from Peshawar before June 24, had received security clearance for resumption of flights.

The Emirates Airlines and the Emirates Airlines had diverted flights from Peshawar to Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport after the June 24 firing.

The flight with 196 passengers and 10 crew members on board was coming in from Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) when gunshots were fired at it on the city’s outskirts, leaving a woman passenger dead and two stewards injured.

The flight was in the landing mode when miscreants targeted it. The local police conducted search operation in the surrounding areas of the airport after the attack.

Investigators said at least nine gunshots were fired at the plane and that security forces had recovered cartridges from Solemankhel area adjacent to the Frontier Region Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2014