Pakistan Extends Airspace Ban on Indian Aircraft Until November 24 in Fresh NOTAM
KARACHI: Indian aircraft will stay out of Pakistani skies for at least another month. The Pakistan Airports Authority issued a fresh Notice to Airmen on Saturday, and the extended Pakistan airspace ban took effect at 7:45pm that evening. It now runs until 4:59am on November 24. The previous extension was due to expire on October 24, so the decision landed a week before the deadline rather than at the last minute.
What the notice actually says
The wording leaves little room for doubt: Pakistani airspace is not available for Indian-registered aircraft, or for aircraft operated, owned or leased by Indian airlines and operators — and military flights are included. The notice applies to both of the country’s flight information regions, Karachi and Lahore, which between them cover the whole of Pakistan’s airspace.
How the closure began
None of this is new. The two neighbours shut their airspace to each other’s airlines in late April 2025, after tensions flared over the Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing the attack; Pakistan denied it and offered a neutral investigation. The standoff escalated into a short but intense air battle in May, and the closure has simply been rolled forward, month by month, ever since.
The bill lands mostly in India
Indian carriers are the ones paying for the detour. Shut out of the direct corridor over Pakistan, their flights to Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia fly longer routes and burn more fuel. In a document submitted to Indian officials last October, Air India — the country’s only airline with a major long-haul network — put the rise in fuel costs at as much as 29 per cent on some routes, with journey times stretching by up to three hours. The same submission estimated the closure’s hit to annual pre-tax profit at around $455 million. Pakistan’s own airlines have felt far less of it, because their networks never depended on Indian airspace to anything like the same degree.
