Pakistan airline denies plans to resume flights to Kabul from Monday

Islamabad: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Saturday expressed willingness to restart commercial flights from Islamabad to Kabul, but added that all depends on the ground situation in Afghanistan. 

A spokesperson for the national carrier, Abdullah Khan, told Voice of America (VoA) that media reports suggesting the flight operation would resume from Monday have been taken out of context. He explained that some international institutions and missions in the Afghan capital are regularly in contact with us and have requested to run charter flights, prompting the airline to seek permission to do that.  

"We had actually applied for a charter flight permission to Kabul that was taken up by media and they actually said PIA is now resuming its regular flight operation from September 13, which is not the case," Khan clarified. He said "certain arrangements" have to be in place before the flight operation could actually resume and those arrangements are not in place yet. Khan did not elaborate further. Meanwhile, other officials said that a third flight carrying relief assistance from the Pakistani government landed in Afghanistan.

Kabul's international airport was severely damaged during a chaotic emergency evacuation of more than 120,000 people, including American and Western nationals, that ended with the withdrawal of US forces just before midnight local time on August 30. The Taliban, who regained power in Kabul on August 15, has been scrambling to get the airport operating again with technical assistance from Qatar and the UAE.