LAHORE, July 13: Flights on several domestic routes have been cancelled after the grounding of Fokker planes and travel on other routes where Boeing can be operated is likely to become costly.

Official sources told Dawn on Thursday that after the decision to ground the Fokker fleet for passenger flights, the operation of Lahore-Bahawalpur, Lahore-Dera Ghazi Khan, Islamabad-Chitral, Islamabad-Gilgit, Peshawar-Dera Ismail Khan, Karachi-Pasni and Karchi-Ormara flights had been suspended for the time being. The operation of Boeing was not possible on those routes owing to airports being small, they added.

“Where the national airline will benefit from the decision because it was bearing a loss of millions of rupees annually for operating the Fokker fleet, the general public will be burdened in terms of fare increase,” an official said. He said PIA was bearing an annual loss of more than Rs30 million because of their (Fokker) repair and maintenance and charging economical fares after declaring them as non-commercial routes.

“The fare will definitely increase because it will not be feasible for PIA to sustain losses while operating Boeing on such routes,” he explained. However, he did not say how much the fares would be increased.

People who had reserved seats on routes – now closed – are facing problems in reaching their destination. However, a PIA official said it was confirming seats of passengers on routes where Boeing were operational and the amount was being refunded on closed routes.

The decision to ground the Fokker fleet has also rendered about three dozen pilots and as many co-pilots surplus because they are not trained to operate big aircraft.

Sources said PIA was now planning to train them to help them remain useful.