Pakistan denies airspace to Srinagar-Sharjah flight

Pakistan has disallowed flights, taking off from Srinagar international airport for Sharjah, from flying its airspace.

Sources said Pakistani authorities disallowed the flights taking off from Srinagar for Sharjah from flying through its territory.

They said that the flight will now be an hour and a half longer as planes will have to fly to Sharjah via Udaipur and Ahmedabad and overfly Oman.

The decision of the neighbouring country will put extra burden for passengers, most of whom are Kashmiris.

Former chief minister of J&K and vice-president National Conference, Omar Abdullah said that the decision by the authorities in Pakistan was unfortunate.

"Very unfortunate. Pakistan did the same thing with the Air India Express flight from Srinagar to Dubai in 2009-2010. I had hoped that @GoFirstairways being permitted to overfly Pak airspace was indicative of a thaw in relations but alas that wasn’t to be," he tweeted.