LAHORE/NEW DELHI, 2 January 2004 — Pakistan flew its first flight to India and back again yesterday, marking the resumption of commercial flights between the rival neighbors after a two-year ban and bringing them a step closer to normal relations.
After carrying 42 passengers and seven crew from the eastern city of Lahore to New Delhi, Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK 270 returned to Lahore from the Indian capital at 6:30 p.m. (1330 GMT) with 118 passengers on board.
Four children and scores of journalists were on the fully booked New Delhi to Lahore flight, PIA spokeswoman Yasmeen Haroon told AFP. “The seven-member crew headed by Capt. Tasleem Muzaffar along with 118 passengers landed at Lahore. There are four infants on the flight,” she told AFP.
“I think many journalists have come to Pakistan for the coverage of the SAARC summit and they will proceed to Islamabad from Lahore,” she added, referring to the three-day South Asia summit starting Sunday.
Check-in counters at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport were decorated with flowers when Flight PK-270 landed earlier. “A flight of friendship: happy days are here again,” said a sign put up at the Pakistani state carrier’s booth at the New Delhi airport.
On the tarmac, at least 10 armed soldiers guarded the plane as passengers boarded the flight back to Lahore, witnesses said. Air links between the two countries were severed exactly two years earlier after India blamed Pakistan-based militants for a December 2001 attack on its Parliament that brought the nuclear-armed neighbors to the brink of war.
Under a series of tie-mending moves since April, the two sides agreed on Dec. 1 to restart air services. The flights resumed three days before Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was due to make his first visit to Pakistan in four years for a seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit.
“The resumption of flights between the two countries is a matter of satisfaction for the people of both sides,” said Capt. Muzaffar, piloting the historic flight.
In New Delhi, Smriti Awasthi said she was going to meet long-lost cousins in Pakistan, which was partitioned from India in 1947. “I’ve never seen them before, so this is a very emotional journey,” she said.
Rashida Amber, in turn, was traveling to New Delhi with her nephew Ajmal and daughter Saima to attend her niece’s wedding. “I will attend the marriage tonight and we will return on the 24th. Had there been no flight we would not have been able to attend the marriage,” she told AFP before taking off in Lahore. Ahmad Saeed Chaudhry, managing director of Pakistan International Airlines, said the carrier was starting six weekly flights from Lahore and Karachi to New Delhi and Bombay, with more flights to be added in the coming months.
In Bombay, the Pakistani airline’s sales manager Salim Janjua said a flight to Karachi was slated for today. He said the flight was almost full, with 220 passengers.
Indian Airlines is due to resume services between New Delhi and Lahore on Jan. 9, with a special flight today for journalists and officials heading to the SAARC summit in Islamabad.
Transport between India and Pakistan resumed in July with a bus service between New Delhi and Lahore. “I’m delighted the flights have been restored as I couldn’t get a ticket on the bus. I would have been stranded for weeks,” Pakistani businessman Aurangzeb Khan said as he arrived in New Delhi. Rail services across the border are due to restart on Jan. 15 in other peace-building moves between the two countries.
