Overcharging passengers in wake of coronavirus

ISLAMABAD: Speaker National (NA) Assembly Asad Qaiser called Minister of Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan and expressed his deep concern over the sudden raise of airfares of flights intended for gulf countries specially Saudi Arabia.

He said that the Aviation Ministry should take necessary measures before expiring of the 72 hours deadline. The Speaker said that no one should be allowed to extort money from anyone at this juncture of time. He said that airlines were overcharging rather extorting money from the Pakistanis intending for Saudi Arabia. He asked the minister for Aviation to immediately address that issue.

Ghulam Sarwar Khan informed the Speaker that government had already taken notice of the sudden raise in airfares and necessary measures had been initiated. He informed that in wake of the corona outbreak and reporting of cases in Pakistan only three major airports had been kept functional for international flights.

He informed that PIA had already initiated extra flights between Saudi Arabia and gulf countries to take Pakistanis before expiry of the timeline, back to those countries where they were working or Pakistanis intending to come back home.

Speaker Asad Qaiser said that it was a testing time and we had to steadfastly and collectively overcome the crises. He praised the steps taken by the government to contain the spread of corona virus.