Air traffic over northern India and Pakistan remained sparse on Thursday, as commercial airlines continued to reroute flights to avoid the airspace amid a sharp escalation in military tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
According to real-time tracking on Flightradar24.com, international flight paths were diverted southward, with aircraft navigating over Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait instead of traversing the usual corridors across South Asia. Aviation analysts warned that the shift raised the risk of congestion in alternative air routes.
The disruption followed a flare-up on Wednesday, when India said it struck nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, targeting what it described as “terrorist infrastructure” linked to a deadly attack in April that killed 26 people, most of them Indian Hindu tourists, in the Kashmir region. Pakistan has denied harboring such camps and said it downed five Indian fighter jets in response to the strikes.
The Pakistan Airports Authority announced temporary suspensions of flight operations at major hubs, including Karachi, Lahore and Sialkot. Indian authorities, meanwhile, kept about a dozen airports in the country’s northwest closed, leaving the airspace above the region virtually deserted.
Several international carriers, including United Airlines, Thai Airways and Korean Air, confirmed they had either rerouted or canceled flights due to safety concerns. No injuries or midair incidents were reported, but the situation remained fluid as military tensions showed no immediate signs of easing.
The aviation rerouting marks the latest sign of fallout from the worsening conflict, which has drawn international concern over the possibility of broader hostilities between India and Pakistan, longtime adversaries with a history of war over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
