Pakistan’s decision to shut airspace for over 4 months hit 600 flights daily: India.

NewDelhi: India has said 600 flights were impacted each day due to the closure of Pakistani airspace in the backdrop of Balakot strikes.

Pakistan had closed its airspace on the 27th of February and opened it only on 16th of July, a period of 140 days. By those calculations, 84,000 flights were impacted.

Speaking in Parliament, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, “The closure of Pakistan airspace on 27th of February 2019 had affected around 600 flights that operate per day across India-Pakistan airspace boundary and these flights were re-routed over Arabian sea airspace.”

Pakistan had closed its airspace in February after it launched an attack on Indian military installations in response to Indian strikes on Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camps in Balakot on 26th of February.

The Pakistan-based terror group was responsible for the February 14th Pulwama attack that killed more than 40 Indian security personnel.

After the Indian counterterror strikes, Pakistan had launched an attack on Indian military installations on 27th of February and as a fallout, New Delhi for few days did close its airspace around the Pakistani border but later reopened it even though the closure for Pakistani planes remained.