RAWALPINDI: After a temporary halt in flight operations due to the tension between the Pakistan Airlines Pilots Association (Palpa) and other stakeholders, PIA resumed its flight operations on Wednesday after Palpa called off the strike the previous day.

Pakistan Interna­tional Airlines operated five international flights — three from Islamabad and two from Lahore — on Wednesday.

A domestic flight for Gilgit was also flown from Islamabad with 38 adults and one infant.

Giving details about the flights that were operated on Wed­nesday, a PIA spokesman said flight number PK-791 with 279 economy class and 25 business class passengers and 13 infants aboard departed for Birmingham from Islamabad at 11:10am.

Pakistanis stranded in Iraq brought back home

Flight number PK-709 with 315 passengers and 13 infants departed for Manchester from Lahore at 8am, while PK-701 with 311 passengers and 16 infants departed for Manchester from Islamabad.

Flight number PK-781 took off for Toronto from Islamabad with 229 passengers and 18 infants at 7:55 am.

Flight number PK-751 with 265 passengers left for Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

Stranded in Iraq come home

A special flight was run by PIA from Baghdad to Islamabad on Wednesday to bring back 136 stranded Pakistanis home, said PIA officials.

The Airport Traffic Control was however alerted by the flight captain that one of the passengers on board had tested positive for Covid-19.

The passenger, a resident of Faisalabad, had been admitted to a Baghdad hospital, along with his two friends. But the two friends died in the hospital from the disease, said a source.

He added that the passenger then spent 15 days in isolation in the hospital before leaving for Pakistan.

On his arrival, he could not produce his health certificate to the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) staff at the airport.

Therefore, he was immediately shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) in Islamabad.

All other passengers and crew members of the flight were scanned by the health staff at the airport and were shifted to designated hotels for quarantine and swab tests, said the source.

After the passengers and crew members left the airport, the CAA staff disinfected the passengers’ bridge and arrival lounge with sodium hypochlorite while the special flight Airbus A320 was disinfected by the PIA engineering staff, added the source.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, and the vast majority survive.

But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can be more severe, even causing pneumonia or death.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2020