India, Pakistan Close Their Airspace to Each Other as Crisis Deepens
 

This is extremely worrying - the current crisis is worse than anything I have seen since India and Pakistan last kicked off, back in the early 1970s.

PIA have announced they will be suspending their weekly operations to Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines due to the overflight restrictions imposed by India. In other news the airline's staff have been ordered to leave India by the 3rd January. Services to Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Japan and Thailand remain unaffected, and PIA are currently flying 747s to Mumbai and Dehli evacuate their remaining nationals.

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1729000/1729988.stm" target="_blank">BBC Report</a>

And from Pakistan's The News, this:

[quote]India, Pakistan to re-schedule air routes

By Masood Anwar

KARACHI: Pakistan and India closed their air space for commercial flights of each other and now national flag carriers of both countries - Pakistan International Airlines and Air India - will have to reschedule their flights and air routes. All the flights towards the Far East from Pakistan will be disturbed by the closure of the Indian airspace while India may have to suspend or divert all its west-bound flights from New Delhi to the Gulf, European and US destinations, aviation experts said.

"We are watching the situation carefully and will assess the feasibility of every flight," Khurshid Anwar, Chief Operating Officer of PIA, told The News. However despite several attempts to contact the officials of the CAA, o body was available for their reaction.

PIA has been operating five flights for Mumbai and three flights for Delhi from Karachi every week while from Lahore four flights are being operated for Delhi. After the closure of Indian airspace, all these flights will be suspended. About 13 flights are operated by PIA for the destinations located in the Far East overflying India, Burma and Thailand. All these will be disturbed. "Definitely we will reschedule our flight operations," Khurshid said and added that all flights found not feasible would be suspended. PIA is flying twice for Hong Kong in a week and these flights would be re-routed over China, he said.

Alliance with airlines for the affected routes is not out of the question. PIA could go into agreement with other airlines on the block space basis, he said. Due to the Afghan situation, many foreign airlines had already suspended flying over Pak-Afghan routes. Thus India was already flying lesser number of flights over Pakistan. Closure of Pakistani airspace for India will mean a negative impact on all west-bound Indian flights that take off from Delhi airport. Its flight operations from Mumbai and Calcutta will not be affected.

In case of closure of Pakistani airspace for Indian planes, India will be shifting its entire flight operations for the Gulf, Europe and US from Delhi to Mumbai and Calcutta, experts said. Pakistan also did the same exercise in September after the closure of the Afghan airspace and shifted its entire flying operation for Europe and US from Lahore and Islamabad to Karachi, they recalled.

After the closure of Indian airspace for Pakistani aircraft, PIA has now been forced to use new routes passing over the Arabian Sea to Colombo for the destinations located in Far East, they said. Change of route means extra flying time of more than 50 minutes and consumption of extra fuel worth of thousands of dollars.

Source: The News International (Jang Group)<hr></blockquote>

What is the local language for "sense of proportion" ?

Musharaff is in a real corner. On one hand, I think he is a moderate who wants Pakistan to become a respected member of the world community and prosper. On the other hand, there is a very large percentage of Pakistani radicals and their unthinking followers that actively engage in intimidation, indoctrination, and violence to further their own mid-evil views.

It was these people in all likelyhood, that attacked and attempted to destroy the foundation of the Indian government. Now India, like Israel, has had enough. The Pakistani government evidently cannot or refuses to control these criminals. Evidently the Pakistani people are either sympathetic or afraid of their own radicals.

The Pakistanis themselves must decide which side they want to be on and clean up their own house. If not, they will either be forever disdained and marginalized by the western world, or outside forces will clean house for them. Again, like the mideast, this is a case of muslims being their own worst enemy.

Roadtrip, sounds like you have the situation summed up quite well....been in that "area" awhile have we? Past or present perhaps?

Well said Road Trip.
Also this going to affect PIA much more than Air India as Air India's major hub is Bombay and Air India can easily afford to route their passengers ex DEL via Bombay on their own flights. It is only going to push up their load factors on the route!

Here you guys are worrying about the "state" of tha nation......

If these guys go nuclear that will be the least of our problems.

<img src="eek.gif" border="0">

Yet again Islamic militants, working to their own warped agenda, are about to bring further pain and misery to the world. They really are the scourge of mankind today.

The last thing the world needs after the last few months is a south Asian war. I just wish people had the guts to tell it like it is, that we are facing a world wide conflict with this particular group of world wide Muslims. Just because of PC considerations and because religion is involved, people are scared to call a spade a spade. This large section of muslims have declared war on the west, on us. It's time we stood up and admitted that this is the reality and that it's not a tiny percentage of muslims that are involved but quite a large amount of them.

Yet again they have triggered hostilities by cowardly attacking the parliament of the worlds largest democracy. If we all stood with the US after her attacks, we should all stand now with India.

This is the point where President Bush should stop floating along on his comfy cloud of patriotic fervour and go to Nepal at short notice to meet with both nations' Leaders.

If he is actually of statesmanlike dimensions he will let them both know unequivocally where they stand. He should offer them a salve for saving face, getting over the interim crisis created by Pakistani radicals and a vision for a prosperous future for the whole region (an evolving Marshall Plan for South Asia - including Afghanistan - to be constructed via an international summit of World Leaders). China would go along with this fully because Pakistan is an ally and China does not wish to be drawn into a nuclear war of its own making (having provided all the Pakistani nuclear know-how, materials and technical assistance).

But this is a great opportunity for a missed opportunity. I personally doubt that George Bush has the prescience and omniscience to see far enough ahead. If he does take some positive steps to resolve this crisis he will be halfway to becoming one of the "great" Presidents. If he doesn't, and the nuclear trigger is pulled, it will be the tragedy that marks his truly indecisive nature and blights his Presidency forever.

A required terpsichorean response to a national outrage is wholly different to dancing adroitly and playing accord on the international stage. I'm betting that he will blow it.

Let us pray. All of us.

It will all be blamed on the evil west of course.

GREEN GIANT,
You really hit the nail on the head.
Its so sad to see USA play double standards, on their own actions.
Why does CNN or BBC still dont address the Pakistani Millitants as Terrorists.
As for the airspace Air India will not be affected by it all,as most of the flts connect from N.Delhi any way.But for PIA.Its self explainatry PAIN IN A$$.(PIA)

I don't know about that Mike - seems reasonably straight forward in this case.

Militants from within Pakistan launched an attack on the Indian Parliament which claimed 8 or 9 lives - excluding the attackers who were also killed.

Pakistan refuses to arrest the group responsible or hand them over to India - India is rightfully pissed.

Rather clear cut I would think. Or do you have some knowledge to the contrary. If so please enlighten us.

The fact is that Pakistan is a haven for Muslim fanatics - as is in evidence that it is the country of choice for Bin Liner to escape to, if he hasn't done so already.

Secular state education in Pakistan has virtually collapsed due to incompetence and corruption. The religious schools [Madrasses] are often the only education available to poor kids, some even pay parents to send their children. These 'schools' turn out thousands of 'graduates' each year - equipped with little more than a knowledge of Islam and a pathological hatred of the west. The results would be similar here if we put the National Front in charge of UK education policy - a whole generation filled with hate and bitterness. Unless and until Pakistan restores secular education, and Saudi Arabia stops funding such fundamentalist education throughout the world, there is little hope. Unfortunately much damage has already been done - for 20+ years the west has ignored these schools preaching their distorted view of the world, with results such as 11th Sept, and probably more to come.

Guess it's not a good time to go and watch England play India at Cricket in the one day series then!

The Terrorists released in exchange of pax in the Indian Airlines flt hijacked to Kandahar 2yrs back,
the same guys were given refuge in Pakistan where they held huge anti India protests, just a few days later.Those terrorists still enjoy safe haven in Pakistan. Does that not make Pakistan a terrorist state ? <img src="mad.gif" border="0">

Ever since the start of the 'war on terrorism', ive had the feeling that there is a bit of a double standard. Mr Bush and his administration have on numerous occassions stated quite clearly that this war is not just on the Taliban, Bin Laden and his network, but also on ANY other country that supports or sponsors terrorism. There was even talk at one point, that the campaign would move onto Iraq.

Why then have they taken no action against Pakistan? Here is a country that since its formation in 1947 has thrived solely on hatred towrads india and the western world and the development of extremist groups. Its well known that Pakistan's own intelligence agency, the ISI, has supported terrorist organisations and has always been sympathetic towards the Taliban. Pakistan itself is largely responsible for the growth of the Taliban. Ok, so without the support of Pakistan, america would struggle to overthrow the Taliban and capture Bin Laden (an act which would do little to stop terrorism around the world). Its clear to see that america is quite happy to use a country in which terrorism has grown, in order to acheive its own personal agenda.

Pakistani groups were responsible for the attacks on the Indian parliament in Delhi and also the terrorist attack on the State Assembly in Srinagar in October in which 38 people were killed. India has every right to build up its forces against Pakistani sponsored terrorism.

There is no doubt the Kashmir issue is a major player in the current hostilities.

Moving away from the reasons, the truly frightening part of this scenario is that two neighbouring countries who have been in possession of nukes for less than a decade are already threatening to use them on each other with apparent scant regard for the consequences.

Is this bluff ?

Don't forget that India was closely allied with the Soviet Union (and now China) whilst Pakistan has generally been allied with the west...

Guv
You are 180 out (re the Chinese and Pakistan). It's the most vital alliance influencing this crisis.

<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/678703.asp" target="_blank">http://www.msnbc.com/news/678703.asp</a>
"The Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has demonstrated no panic. He returned late Monday from a five-day trip to China and has spent the last two days in Karachi on domestic business, far from his military headquarters in Rawalpindi."

The reason why Musharraf is not panicking is because he has had the usual assurances from China that Pakistan will be backed to the hilt by China. India has a very long border with China and many unsettled border disputes lie festering (some as recent as the 50's and 60's). Both Sri Lanka and Pakistan's military see China as a preferred military supplier. Pakistan's short and medium range ballistic missiles are of Chinese origin, as are most of their combat aircraft. China is in every way Pakistan's strategic partner in the region and that's been the case for over two decades now.

India may be pee'd off, but it would be quite foolish for Vajpayee to end up in a nuclear stoush with China as well over Jammu and Kashmir. It's still the same China that wouldn't have its bluff called by Gen McArthur in the 50's. If India instigates anything they can expect a horde of Chinese regiments all up and down their common border. For every tactical nuke India throws at Pakistan they can expect one back from China. That is unfortunately how the Chinese model works - when alliances are tested.

Pakistan says that Indian air strikes are thought to be "imminent" and will probably be on alleged Islamic terrorist training camps in the Kashmiri region.

The Pakistani President says that if such strikes occur, they will immediately retaliate.

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1734000/1734830.stm" target="_blank">BBC Report here.</a>