Aviation
Commercial /
Asia
Passenger rights
Pakistan wants airlines to compensate passengers harmed by flight cancellations during pandemic
Etihad Airways
787-10
Boeing Media Room
José PEDRO Magalhães Ramos
7/6/2021
Pakistan's government may be about to take legal action against airlines that have canceled flights and allegedly left passengers in dire straits far from their homes and unable to return to their countries.
The problem would have been the booking of flights during periods prohibited by Pakistani health authorities. Despite restrictions on entry and exit from the country, flights were scheduled and ended up not taking place due to official restrictions.
The occurrences took place after May 5, 2021, when, to control the pandemic, air access to the country was restricted by the authorities.
however the CAA, civil air authority, found that flights scheduled for the prohibited period were not only maintained but also had tickets and trips sold normally. Also according to the Pakistani authority, this resulted in thousands of passengers being prevented from traveling to Pakistan and harmed by the situation, especially Pakistani citizens who traveled abroad and were restrained on foreign nations during the period that the travel restriction lasted.
There are five airlines accused by the Pakistani authority of having run this supposed failure, they are Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Etihad and Fly Dubai. All of these received letters from the Pakistani Civil Aviation Administration demanding compensation measures for the injured passengers.
The authority understands that, depending on the impact caused to each passenger, they must be reimbursed for the accommodation and subsistence values abroad or, as the case may be, have the cost of the ticket fully reimbursed by the airlines.
The CAA understands that there is no excuse for the supposed failure of the companies since they were formally advised of the travel restrictions and the dates on which they would occur.
The deadline for companies to present the proposed solution to the problem is tight. The requirement on companies is that this is done by July 8, 2021, as according to the authorities, companies are in violation of the provisions of the Montreal Convention rules 22 article 1.
While maintaining air travel restrictions on 20% of normal traffic as a way to slow down Covid-19 contagions, the Asian country had already made direct flights more flexible to up to 40% of capacity, especially flights originating in the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada and Malaysia among other countries.
Emirates
777F
Adrian Pingstone, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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José PEDRO Magalhães Ramos
He is a professional with almost four decades of experience in aviation. Having worked at Rio Sul and TAM in the 1980s and in the 1990's, joined Vasp where he spent 10 years in the Engineering area. He then created and operated the website www.aerospace.com.br for 4 years, now extinct and in 2004 he joined Gol, having stayed until 2017 and passed in various technical and business areas. Currently as a technical consultant still-and always-in the aviation area, he dedicates his private time to create and operate this our portal!
   
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