RAWALPINDI: Thick fog over the Benazir Bhutto International Airport (BBIA) affected the flight schedule and hundreds of passengers after flights were diverted or cancelled on Thursday.

A flight from Abu Dhabi to Islamabad was diverted to Lahore and passengers were asked to take busses to Islamabad. Some of the passengers declined a ride in the uncomfortable buses and made their own arrangements for the commute.

Passengers on board a foreign airline’s flight, which was diverted to Lahore, complained about the airline staff’s attitude and said they were dropped in Lahore in the cold weather and that there was no one from the airline management to attend to them.

A spokesperson for the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) said that PK-714 travelling from Madina to Islamabad was diverted to Karachi and that PK-262 from Abu Dhabi to Islamabad was diverted to Lahore. PK-300 from Karachi to Islamabad was delayed as was PK-374 from Karachi to Islamabad.

He said PIA flights PK-761 from Islamabad to Jeddah and PK-781 from Karachi to Toronto were delayed while the flights between Islamabad and Skardu were cancelled. The delayed flights took off after the weather improved. A senior BBIA official said all flight delays were pre-planned as the concerned authorities had been told about the bad weather conditions.

Passengers were requested by the airline managements to check their flight timings before leaving for the airport.

According to the weather forecast, the weather will be clear late into the night and Islamabad will be blanketed by a fog after 4am.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2017