Air Canada is warning that some flights to India are cancelled due to the closure of Pakistani airspace.
The company said Wednesday morning that all air travel to the country was suspended. However as of Wednesday afternoon, one flight was scheduled to depart.
A flight en route to Delhi from Toronto turned back while over the Atlantic Ocean, arriving at Pearson airport Wednesday afternoon.
“It was only six hours left to get there,” said Pal Brar, a passenger on the plane. “It’s a 14-hour flight … and now we don’t know when we will fly again.”
“I haven’t slept yet,” said Happy Brar. “It’s been 30 hours.”
Two other flights to Delhi, one from Toronto and the other from Vancouver, scheduled to depart on Wednesday and Thursday respectively have been cancelled. The airline said there were “no suitable alternative routings” for the flights. As well, a Tuesday flight from Vancouver to Delhi was cancelled.
“We have put in place a goodwill policy for affected customers and are monitoring the situation in order to resume service once the situation normalizes and we determine it is safe to do so,” Air Canada wrote in a statement.
“Air Canada operates daily service from Toronto and Vancouver to Delhi and four times weekly from Toronto to Mumbai.”
Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement Wednesday that it has shut its airspace to all commercial flights as tensions with India escalate over the disputed region of Kashmir.
Air Canada said a flight departing Toronto Wednesday evening for Mumbai will go ahead as planned, taking a "different routing" that avoids Pakistani airspace.
A check of publicly available flight information showed several other airlines have re-routed Indian-bound flights south of Pakistan, over the Persian Gulf and through the Gulf of Oman towards India.
Pakistan's government said the airspace closure will last until midnight on Thursday.
The airspace closure comes after Indian Air Force warplanes bombed a suspected militant training camp on the Pakistani side of the line of control that separates the disputed region of Kashmir.
The raid was in response to a suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Feb. 14 that killed more than 40 Indian soldiers.
Pakistan’s air force says it shot down two Indian MIG fighter planes and captured one of the pilots.
It also says one of its own fighter planes crashed in unknown circumstances inside Pakistani territory.
The suicide bombing was the deadliest assault on troops in Indian Kashmir since 1989.
Global Affairs Canada issued a travel advisory for India and is asking Canadians to avoid all non-essential travel to Pakistan.
With files from the Associated Press
