Our neighbourhood is once again in the state of selective aerial embargo. It is nothing new as we still have much severe aerial embargos between most of the European countries and Russia. Blaming Russia for having started the Ukraine war, Russian airlines were banned from the European skies. As a tit-for-tat, Russia followed by banning European airlines from its skies. It was a big loss for both sides as shortest route to east Asia through Russia was effectively off, while Russian airlines had no European destinations to fly to. Thought not barred airlines of Japan and even South Korea volunteered to not overfly Russia. It was the same with US and Russian airspaces. The situation offered a great advantage for the Chinese and Indian airlines in their flights to US and Europe. And it was so stupid that the USA had the audacity to complain about the uneven “flying” field as its airlines were grossly disadvantaged, more so because it was before Trump II.

A common school atlas can’t be relied to measure distance between places. It is because the projected land mass shown on extreme north/south latitudes get unduly elongated while those near around equatorial regions get compressed. That is why Greenland, though much smaller, looks bigger than South American. The presented image makes it easier to understand the concept of “the great circle distance”. Airways are generally designed along shortest possible pathway or “great circle distance”.

Airlines are required to carry fuel not just to reach their destinations but also have enough for unforeseen circumstances. Keeping that in mind, it is ideal to carry as much “payload” (pax+cargo) as practically possible. At times like current embargo, airlines are forced to cut down on payload, if not, make midway stopover to take fuel etc. As both are very costly options and it is taking a toll on airlines besides creating unnecessary hassle and complications.

There was a long blockade episode in 2017 imposed by Saudi Arabia (KSA) and smaller GCC countries against Qatar for having “supported terrorism”. Basically, the blockade was the result of inherent tussle between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam. KSA, a Sunni kingdom, was/is a “regional bully” because of its “big, rich and powerful” image, helped by American pampering. This case was interesting because small Qatar, the world's fourth-largest natural gas producer, was too hard a nut to crack despite the severity of long and total blockade. It ended diplomatically after about three and half years in 2021. The long blockade barred Qatari airlines from overflying other GCC countries and it had to fly longer routes on its way to Europe and African destinations.

Coming back to the present, this is not the first time Pakistan has closed its airspace in response to Indian actions. It had done so during the Kargil (1999) conflict and again after the Pulwama (2019) attack. It had a much wider implication, as the Pakistani airspace was also effectively shut for other airlines (non-Indian) flying to Indian destinations then. The same is being enacted once again following April 22 Pahalgam incident with India imposing softer punitive measures and Pakistan so far. Pakistan, in its turn, has resorted to imposing overflight ban, but only against Indian registered airlines this time and is notified to be effective until 23 May.

It will depend on what India does next, if the situation gets worse, then the ban will obviously be extended. Until now, there has been much sabre rattling particularly on Indian side and it looks increasingly likely that some form of military actions will follow soon. And if so, it is more likely to exacerbate the already bad situation than mitigate it.

Another aspect of flight ban is that it also hurts the imposing country in terms of loss of substantial revenue for having provided overflying rights and en route navigation facilities. As per the claim of an Indian paper, Pakistan was set to lose millions because of the closure as charge for a B737 transiting Pakistani airspace were about $580, and was higher for larger aircraft. Using this as a base, officials estimated that daily losses from overflight charges alone were about $232,000. And with terminal navigation and other charges added, the daily loss climbed to around $300,000. They claimed that there were about 800 Indian airline flights overflew Pakistan every day. Pakistani paper, on the other hand claimed, “Airspace closure hits Indian flights hard, sparks wider fallout” and adds around 200 to 300 Indian flights used Pakistani airspace every day.

While it is Pakistan now, but during the period after American left Afghanistan in a hurry, flights to/from this region were again disrupted for a long period of time because no one was sure how would Taliban treat overflights as Afghans had no agency overseeing fight management as almost all airlines avoided flying over. But the very critical narrow land mass going by the name “Wakhan corridor”, on its north-east corner, was too difficult to be ignored for long. Reason, through Wakhan passed the airway that provided link to north Europe and beyond via P500/Z407.

It was quite likely that Afghans were either incapable or had any interest in shooting down a passenger liner transiting Wakhan but “trespassing” still posed a big risk. While most Asian airlines found a way to cross by switching off their transponder, perhaps taking solace that it was too far remote from the bulk of Afghanistan, hence safe. The American airlines needed FAA authorisation to venture across it. Afghanis could still throw the air travel in turmoil if it chooses to act like a strict gate keeper, for the benign looking appendage is too critical a passage. It is therefore prudent for EVERYONE in the region to not rock the boat too violently.

Hemant Arjyal can be reached at harjyal@yahoo.com