Pakistan makes exceptions in travel restrictions placed on UK flights

Civil Aviation Authority has issued Tuesday a revision on the travel ban it imposed the day before on inbound flights from the UK now saying the Pakistani passport holding passengers in England can come back to home country with some conditions in place, ARY News reported.

The cabinet’s aviation division had yesterday imposed travel restrictions on UK to Pakistan flights due to a newly detected variant of COVID which the UK authorities confirmed was 70 per cent more transmittable than the original viral.

According to new  CAA advisory on inbound travel from UK, any Pakistan passport holder with Business visa, visitor visa or Transit visa can board Pakistani bound UK flight on a condition they test COVID negative in a PCR test conducted 72 hours prior to flight.

Secondly, Pakistani based in England with study, family, work and settlement visa, which is due to expire within 30 days starting Dec 22, may also return to Pakistan with the same PCR test conditions.

READ: Pakistan temporarily suspends UK flights amid detection of new Covid strain

Other than these cases stated above, the flight crew and personnel working in flights between UK and Pakistan may also, with their COVID negative PCR tests and post landing quarantine in the designated hotesl, disembark for Pakistan according to CAA.

The notification further said that all diplomatic officials of British High Command and their families currently outside Pakistan may also, with their negative PCR results, travel back to Pakistan.

It is to be noted that yesterday, the government of Pakistan declared a temporary suspension on all incoming flights from the UK for at least a week on the premise of new COVID strain detection in England which is ‘more transmissible than other previously known strains’.

“Direct or indirect travel from the UK would be temporarily suspended, starting 11:59 PM on 22nd of December 2020,” the press release on the new development read.