RAWALPINDI: Pakistani passengers travelling abroad on a visit visa, particularly to Dubai, Bangkok and Malaysia, will now be required to have a two-way ticket with the same airline.

In the case of separate airline tickets, the PNR number must be the same and passengers with a ‘low profile’ must be checked at airports, documents reveal.

According to correspondence between the Federal Investigation Agency and the Civil Aviation Authority, the move was prompted by incidents of passengers being denied boarding if they had itineraries booked under different PNRs, or had a return ticket with a different airline.

The FIA said it had noted with concern that a significant number of “low-profile passengers” were travelling to Malaysia and Thailand with different ticket numbers even on the same PNR.

This allowed some travel agents to “refund the return ticket, leaving passengers in a distressed situation in case they face entry refusal and deportation”. The passengers are then forced to pay the airline, even though they have paid the travel agents in full.

In this regard, the FIA requested that boarding cards only be issued to those passengers who have the same ticket number, so that the exploitation of such passengers at the hands of some travel agents is curbed and their rights are protected.

A CAA letter noted that this procedure would apply to airlines that fly to states where a return ticket with the same airline is a requirement of their border control regime. Other airlines whose state of registry does not have such requirements can continue to sell tickets in the usual manner.

The FIA and CAA have also written to all domestic and foreign airlines in this regard.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2024