PIA’s continued efforts to bring the repatriates from the UAE

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PIA announced special flights to/from the US

 

Lahore, 10th May: Ghulam Dastgir, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UAE, said frequency of special flights will be increased once quarantine facilities are ready in the country.

We are trying to increase present quarantine capacity from 7,000 people per week to 15,000 per week in the coming weeks.

A proposal is also under consideration to allow home quarantine to certain categories of people that will speed up the process. Currently, more than 63,000 people have been registered with the Pakistan Consulate in Dubai for repatriation. It includes over 11,000 overseas Pakistanis who were rendered jobless because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“We can increase more special flights if we double the present capacity to quarantine repatriated citizens,” Dastgir said.

To a question, he said ticket prices for special flights have been rationalized and people now travel to Karachi by paying a nominal price of around Dh800.

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“Planes are not flying with full capacity due to special safety measures as per the COVID-19 travel advisory. Pakistani community, embassy and consulate are also supporting those who are unable to afford the tickets,” the ambassador said.

Majority of 1.5 million Pakistanis residing in the UAE are blue-collar workers and many of them have lost their jobs and are now stranded due to the suspension of flights amid the pandemic.

Shahid Mughal, regional manager for UAE at Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), said the airline’s special flight operation is going smoothly and will continue until all stranded people are repatriated.

“Today, we operated special flights from Dubai to Lahore to repatriate more than 250 passengers in the airline’s 777 aircraft. The flight took off at 1 pm and all passengers will be quarantined for 48 hours on arrival,”

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He said all passengers have to undergo COVID-19 test within 24-hour of landing. Those who test negative are allowed to leave the quarantine facility while people who tested positive will have to go through further tests,” he added.

PIA has so far operated more than 15 special flights to repatriate 5,000-plus stranded Pakistanis in the UAE so far.

“The airline’s special flight operations commenced on April 18 and will continue until all registered people are repatriated to the country,” Mughal further said.

Stay tuned to Baaghi TV for more news and updates!

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