Pakistan has turned down an overflight request by India for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming trip to the United States.
The longer route that Air India One will now take will increase the flying time for the Delhi-Frankfurt (fuelling halt for onward flight to Houston) leg of AI One by 45-50 minutes. Pakistan had earlier this month turned down a similar request by the President, Ram Nath Kovind when he flew to Europe.
The alternate route from Delhi bypassing Pakistan airspace means flying near Mumbai-Arabian Sea (steering clear Pakistan airspace around Karachi) — Muscat — and then to Europe. The straight route would have entailed flying from Delhi to Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran to Europe.
Pakistan had closed its airspace for overflying on February 27 following an aerial engagement between the air forces of two countries over the disputed Kashmir region and had re-opened the same after 138 days on July 16. During this time all flights between Delhi and the west took the longer route.
