Pakistan's airspace closure may increase airfares in India

India has taken several strict steps after the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir. As a result, Pakistan also closed its airspace to Indian flights in response. It is to be noted that international flights from various airports, including Delhi's IGI International Airport, use Pakistan's airspace. But after Pakistan's decision, there is a discussion in India about whether airfares will increase and how much financial loss Indian airlines will face. Apart from this, there are also problems with air routes.

The impact of Pakistan's decision will be clearly seen in the next few days as a large number of people from India travel to different countries of the world by international flights. Civil aviation industry experts say that the cost of airlines will increase and as a result airfares may increase.

Experts also say that international flights departing from Delhi airport will have to travel a lot extra on their way to West Asia, Europe, the United States and North America due to the closure of Pakistan's airspace.

Since Pakistan has not taken any such decision regarding airlines from other countries, they will continue to use Pakistan's airspace and their advantage will increase compared to Indian airlines.

It is worth noting that when India carried out air strikes in Balakot in February 2019, Pakistan also closed its airspace for a few months. Pakistan opened its airspace in July 2019 and at that time, India's Ministry of Civil Aviation said that Indian airlines had suffered a total loss of more than Rs 550 crore due to the airspace closure. Also, due to the closure of Pakistan's airspace at that time, most of the flights had to fly an extra 70 to 80 minutes. For example, Air India flights from Delhi to Chicago had to stop in Europe for refueling. Again, IndiGo flights from Delhi to Istanbul had to stop in Doha for refueling.