RAWALPINDI: The government has granted Austria the permission to operate a chartered flight carrying 83 Pakistani citizens from Austria to land at Islamabad International Airport (IIA) today.

The permission was granted subject to observance of standard operating procedure (SOP) for Covid-19 as issued by National Command and Control Centre (NCOC) for all international flights. Flight PVG-6553 is scheduled to land at IIA today at 4:30am.

The government has also asked Ministry of Interior and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to only accept returnees who were verified through the readmission process as per SOP issued by the government. A list of 83 individuals along with their verification status was provided to airport authorities and FIA’s immigration staff. They have been directed to only receive individuals, whose name is on the list and send back those whose information has not been verified, through the same flight. The 83 Pakistani citizens will be escorted by security and medical staff.

The Austrian embassy in a statement said that a non-scheduled flight will be landing at IIA on Oct 15, 2020 carrying the returning Pakistani citizens escorted by police officers (no weapons and ammunition onboard).

The embassy is expecting clearance of the returnees along with the flight’s landing and take-off, it added.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2020