Pakistani missions in Saudi Arabia on Sunday launched round-the-clock helplines and deployed teams at major airports to assist travellers, following disruptions to flight schedules amid the ongoing Gulf crisis, Radio Pakistan reported.
The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has disrupted air travel, affecting Pakistani Umrah pilgrims and other passengers travelling to the Saudi Arabia, officials said.
According to the government, the Pakistani Embassy in Riyadh and the Consulate General of Pakistan in Jeddah have established round-the-clock helplines and deployed teams at regional airports to assist Pakistani travellers.
The measures were taken following instructions from the Government of Pakistan to facilitate passengers amid disruptions caused by the regional security situation.
Officials said the situation for Pakistani pilgrims and travellers in Jeddah, Makkah and Madinah remains stable.
However, minor operational restrictions and precautionary risk advisories are currently in place in parts of the regional airspace due to the ongoing conflict, authorities said.
Tensions in the Middle East escalated sharply after US and Israeli air strikes last week assassinated Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior officials, triggering a wave of retaliation from Tehran and widening the conflict across the region.
In response to the strikes, Iran launched retaliatory attacks on US military bases in several Gulf countries, significantly expanding the scope of the confrontation.
Pakistan’s international airports had been experiencing widespread cancellations due to ongoing regional tensions in the Gulf. More than 570 flights to Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, were cancelled since February 28.
Affected carriers included Emirates, Etihad Airways, Air Arabia, Pakistan International Airlines, Airblue, Flydubai and Qatar Airways.
On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said the government had taken comprehensive steps to facilitate Pakistanis stranded in Iran and other Gulf countries.
He said special facilitation desks had been established to assist returning Pakistani nationals. Pakistan’s embassy in Abu Dhabi and consulates in Jeddah and Dubai were actively assisting Pakistani nationals, while similar arrangements had also been set up in Tehran, Zahedan and Mashhad.
Officials said disruptions and airspace closures in several Gulf countries had caused Pakistan an estimated revenue shortfall of Rs20 billion.
Globally, the crisis has led to large-scale disruptions in air travel. Despite governments and airlines arranging special flights to evacuate travellers stranded in the region, more than 13,000 flights have been cancelled internationally.
According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, flights in the region account for around 900,000 seats each day, indicating that the number of affected travellers could already exceed one million.