Pakistan's aviation industry is so dead it doesn't feel India's airspace ban
In a tit-for-tat move, India has banned Pakistani aircraft from its skies following the deadly terror attack in Pahalgam. But will Pakistani airlines feel the same sting Indian carriers did when Islamabad imposed a similar ban?Flight-tracking data shows Pakistani airlines recently started avoiding Indian airspace even before the official ban was announced on Wednesday night. India Today's Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) team found that six flights operated by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the state-run flag carrier, began rerouting to Malaysia starting Tuesday, April 22.advertisement
PIA's six weekly flights from Islamabad and Lahore airports to Kuala Lumpur are now taking a circuitous route via China to bypass the Indian airspace. The new route is considerably longer as flights skirt the Tibetan Plateau due to harsh conditions, adding nearly three hours of travel time to the original schedule.Among Pakistani operators, PIA is the only carrier that serves routes passing over India.Unlike India, which has several private carriers operating hundreds of flights daily across numerous routes, Pakistan relies primarily on its state-run airline, PIA.Destinations east of Pakistan that require overflying Indian airspace are mostly served by foreign carriers such as Etihad, China Southern Airlines, and Thai Airways. These airlines won't be impacted by the Indian ban.COMPARISON OR NO COMPARISON?According to data and experts, the ban on Pakistani airlines in Indian skies wouldn't hurt them as much as Pakistan's ban hurts Indian operators. The reason is simple: Pakistanis don't fly to the East as much as Indians travel to the West.advertisementScale and size in both countries' aviation industries are another major differentiator. India's aviation industry is the third-largest in the world, trailing only the United States and China, while Pakistan ranks 50th globally. Pakistan's low flight volumes and limited eastbound destinations mean the impact on its already non-existent indigenous aviation industry is likely to be minimal.While an estimated aggregate of Pakistan-based commercial airlines is 53 (PIA alone operates 32), Indian carriers affected by the ban boast a fleet of more than a thousand aircraft.A serving commercial pilot, requesting anonymity, said the Indian ban would add more flight hours, fuel and hence a slump in operating profit for the affected flights of PIA, which is knee-deep in debt. 'But Pakistan doesn't have the concept of making profits, it seems. They make stupid decisions and create bigger problems for themselves. As for Indian flights, we are prepared for this since Pakistan closed its airspace in 2019,' he said.Airlines pay a fee when they use another country's airspace. While India loses nothing by closing its airspace, Pakistan is likely to suffer a loss of crores in overflight charge revenue. Pakistan lost around Rs 250 crore or 8.5 billion in Pakistani currency during five months of its ban on Indian flights during military tensions triggered by the 2019 Pulwama attack.advertisement"This measure will exacerbate the economic pressure on the undersized PIA with a modest fleet of 32 aircrafts", says Dr. Manoranjan Sharma, chief economist at Infomerics Valuation and Ratings.
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