Thousands of passengers travelling this summer are likely to face longer flights and pay higher airfares due to the closure of Pakistan airspace, in place for more than a month now after the Balakot airstrike. “The airspace closure forced the flights between Delhi and Kabul to take a longer route. As a result the flying time increased to five hours (from 2 hours and 10 minutes) and the airfare doubled. Air Astana had 11 flights per week to Delhi, which are now down to seven and may be slashed further. Many air travellers flying to Europe take Aeroflot’s one-stop flights via Moscow because of attractive airfares offered by it.

Source: The Hindu April 02, 2019 17:15 UTC