LAHORE: At least four international and a couple of domestic flights had to be diverted from the Allama Iqbal International Airport on Wednesday as the flight operation remained suspended for a couple of hours because of the presence of birds on the runway.

According to officials, the flights coming from Paris, Madina, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi were diverted to other airports, including Sialkot, Islamabad and Multan, because numerous birds were flying over the airport.

They said the Civil Aviation Authority shooters fired gunshots in the air to scare the birds away.

As the runway got cleared after two hours, the diverted flights returned to Lahore.

It is learnt that because of rainy weather a flock of birds landed on the airport premises that caused the problem.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2019