PIA Suspends Flights to Kabul Due to a Lack of Facilities

KARACHI: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) momentarily halted Kabul flight operations on Saturday due to a lack of amenities and waste heaps on the tarmac at Hamid Karzai International Airport.

According to sources familiar with the situation, there were no immigration authorities or security checks at the Kabul airport. According to the sources, sanitation personnel have also failed to do their responsibilities since the Taliban assumed control of the country.

The garbage on the tarmac at the airport could result in a terrible disaster, according to the sources.

The United States is responsible for the security of Kabul Airport, according to the sources, who added that they were only interested in military planes.

It’s worth noting that for the last four days, PIA was the only commercial airline operating flights to and from Kabul to assist with the evacuation of diplomats and foreign nationals.

The head of the PIA pays a visit at Kabul Airport

To enhance crew morale, PIA CEO Air Marshal Arshad Malik personally accompanied the first flight out to Kabul on Friday.

The PIA chief had met with members of the Afghan civil aviation authority’s staff as well as NATO forces.
He also went to the airport with Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Mansoor Ahmad Khan, to assess PIA’s managerial and operational issues.

According to a PIA spokeswoman, about 1,000 passengers have been evacuated from Kabul and brought to Islamabad in five special flights so far.

Risky decision
When situations at the HKIA started to spiral out of control a few days ago, a PIA pilot made a hazardous decision.

Hundreds of people scrambled to board a flight out of Afghanistan, which was on the verge of being overrun by the Taliban.

Maqsood Bajarani, a PIA pilot, was also at the airport on that day, with a mission to safely return 170 people to Pakistan, including diplomats. When a swarm of civilians thronged the runway in an attempt to catch a trip out of the war-torn country on board a US military plane, he was waiting for a green signal from air traffic control to depart.

Another PIA flight, this time a Boeing 777, took off, but the Airbus remained grounded.