RAWALPINDI: One of the three chartered flights arranged by the US embassy to repatriate diplomats and other American nationals from Pakistan took off for Washington from the Islamabad International Airport on Friday with 279 passengers on board.

The US embassy had sought permission from Pakistani authorities to operate three chartered flights — two from Islamabad and one from Karachi — to repatriate American nationals stranded in Pakistan since the suspension of flights because of the coronavirus crisis.

The three flights are expected to carry home 560 US citizens, 260 diplomats among them.

The Egyptian airliner hired for Friday’s flight took off over an hour behind schedule as health checks and other formalities turned out to be more time-consuming than expected.

The US embassy had set up its own facilitation counter at the airport where its staffers scanned passengers and conducted health checks.

The Egypt Air had carried out disinfection of the aircraft and no crew member was allowed to step off the plane at Islamabad airport.

The passengers had been advised to reach the airport at least three hours before the start of check-in time.

On Saturday a Boeing 787 will carry 300 US citizens from Karachi.

Meanwhile, a special plane carrying medical tools from China landed at Islamabad airport on Friday.

The special cargo flight brought personal protective equipment for doctors, gloves, masks, thermal detectors and testing kits. Airport staff carried out disinfection of the plane before offloading the consignment.

Private flights

A day after the Civil Aviation Authority announced extension of flying operation (general flying of private aircraft) from April 10 to April 21, the federal government on Friday allowed the operation of private aircraft between three airports to begin with.

Abdus Sattar Khokhar, a spokesman for the Aviation Division, said in a statement that the government had approved the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for flying private planes between Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad airports.

He said the SOPs had taken care of steps required to control the spread of Covid-19.

Since the number of private aircraft is very small, they had been allowed to operate between the three airports, but the operators would have to observe the conditions made clear to them before the grant of permission, the spokesman said.

The order will not apply to planes used by the governors and the chief ministers since they are categorised as special aircraft.

Suspension extended

The Civil Aviation Authority extended on Thursday the suspension of flight operations, both domestic and international, till April 21.

The previous suspension order became void on Friday.

In the previous order, the government had ordered the suspension of international and domestic flight operations. But it had granted exemption to flights carrying diplomats and others left stranded because of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2020