CAA slaps Rs100,000 fine on foreign airline for violating COVID-19 SOPs

KARACHI: Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of Pakistan has on Friday reportedly moved against an international airlines company for failing to observe COVID-19 related Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), ARY News reported.

The civil aviation has reportedly slapped a fine of Rs100,000 on Qatar Airways for violating the set SOPs laid out by the airports and aviation regulatory body. The SOPs were designed to allow the resumption of flight operations amongst countries which had previously been halted to curb the spread of the global pandemic.

READ: CAA issues new travel advisory for passengers

According to sources, the local aviation authority’s senior joint secretary has fined Qatar Airways a penalty of Rs100,000 for failing to follow through on the SOPs.

Other than the penalty, the Qatar headquartered airline will be responsible for conducting COVID-19 tests of all the onboard passengers and will bear the expenses of quarantining them alongside the miscellaneous that incur.

The CAA, just two days back, also issued a new travel advisory for the passengers that, too, in a move to contain novel coronavirus spread.

According to a travel advisory issued by the CAA authorities, the passengers reaching Pakistan from abroad have been divided into two categories.

As many as 30 countries including, China, Japan, New Zealand, Turkey, Saudi Arabia have been placed in ‘A’ category and passengers travelling from this category are not bound to go through PCR test for coronavirus while travelling to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, coronavirus test has been declared mandatory for the passengers travelling from the countries, who are placed in ‘B’ category by the CAA before 96 hours.