Pak turns down India proposal for pvt flights

Earlier, Jet and Sahara had approached the National Democratic Alliance Government to facilitate their flights to the western neighbour and the request was sent by the External Affairs Ministry to Islamabad a few months back.

The Pakistani civil aviation authorities grounded the proposal on the plea that the two countries should first consolidate their existing services and later discuss the issue of according ‘‘designated carrier’’ status to the private airlines, they added.

The sources said that Pakistan’s decision may have been prompted by fears of Indian carriers walking away with the majority of the traffic between the two countries, at the cost of its national carrier PIA.