Over 1,000 Pakistanis to fly back home from Dubai today

DUBAI: More than 1,000 stranded Pakistanis will be flown back to their home country from Dubai on Monday as another phase of the repatriation of stranded Pakistanis from Dubai is kicking off from today (April 20).

According to the Pakistan Consulate Dubai, four flights have been arranged for evacuation of Pakistanis that will take passengers to Karachi and Lahore from Dubai airport. The screening of all the passengers would be carried out before the departure and the repatriated passengers will have to stay in quarantine for at least 48 hours in Pakistan, according to the mechanism called out for a smooth evacuation.

The Pakistan Consulate Dubai stated that two PIA flights to Lahore will take about 500 Pakistanis from Dubai airport terminal 2 and two other flights will depart to Karachi with more than 500 passengers. The “flight desk” has been set up in the premises of the consulate by the Pakistan national carrier to sell tickets to those stranded Pakistan seeking to return back home.

On April 19, flights’ tickets were sold to more than 1,000 passengers in the consulate and many stranded Pakistanis felt relieved after buying the tickets to go back home. While, some travellers have complained about the increased price of one way ticket. It is reported that the one way fare of Karachi flight is around Dh1,500 (Rs66,000) while Lahore's one way ticket is around Dh1,700 (Rs75,000).

Moreover, the stranded Pakistanis from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa expressed displeasure in no flights for Peshawar. According to the aviation authorities, the Peshawar bounded flight had been arranged on April 20 too but it has been canceled due to unavoidable reasons. Now, according to the flights schedule, one plane will take off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on April 24 with 250 passengers.

Moreover, two flights will be flown to Faisalabad on April 24 with more than 280 travellers, according to the schedule. One flight to Multan, Faisalabad and Karachi each will also depart on April 28. Around 800 passengers will return in these flights too.

The officials of the diplomatic missions say that the current flight schedule can also be modified due to the number of passengers and bookings. And the number of flights could be increased as well after the government’s approval.