Pakistan Extends Its Airspace Ban on Indian Airlines to November 24

Pakistan has extended its airspace ban on Indian airlines for another month, to 4:59 a.m. Pakistan time on November 24, 2026. The Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) issued the new Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) on Saturday, October 17, a week before the previous notice was due to lapse on October 24.

The renewal changes nothing for passengers in the short term, and that is the point. Flights from northern India to Europe, the Middle East and North America keep flying the long way around Pakistan, as they have since April 2025.

What the new notice says

According to the notice text quoted by Dawn, Pakistani airspace is “not available for Indian registered aircraft and aircraft operated/owned or leased by Indian airlines/operators, including military flights.” The extension took effect at 7:45 p.m. Pakistan time on Saturday, which was 10:45 a.m. Eastern.

It covers both of Pakistan’s flight information regions, Karachi (OPKR) and Lahore (OPLR), so it applies across the whole country’s airspace. The PAA also announced the extension in a post on X, The Tribune reported.

A ban that is renewed one month at a time

Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian carriers in late April 2025, after a deadly attack on tourists at Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for the attack, which Islamabad denied, and closed its own airspace to Pakistani airlines on April 30, 2025.

Like Algeria’s ban on UAE aircraft, this is an overflight ban used in a diplomatic dispute, but both governments have kept theirs alive with fresh notices roughly every month. The last Pakistani renewal was reported in mid-September and ran to October 24, according to Deccan Chronicle.

In April 2026, Deccan Herald reported that both countries had been extending their closures month by month since the start. India’s ban mirrors Pakistan’s, covering Pakistan-registered aircraft and those operated, owned or leased by Pakistani airlines, military flights included.

Pakistan has used the same lever before, during the 1999 Kargil conflict and the 2019 crisis that followed the Pulwama attack, according to Geo News as cited by The Tribune. The 2019 closure led to an estimated Rs7.6 billion ($54 million) revenue loss, Dawn reported in August 2025.

Why the detour costs so much

Pakistan sits directly on the shortest path between Delhi and the West. Airliners fly great circle routes, and from northern India that curve runs northwest across Pakistan toward Iran, Central Asia and Europe.

Without it, flights out of Delhi’s main airport head south and west over the Arabian Sea before turning north. On the longest routes the extra time and fuel mean some flights now stop to refuel or carry fewer passengers and less cargo.

Air India, India’s only carrier with a major international network, carries most of the burden. A document the airline submitted to Indian officials in late October 2025, reported by Reuters, put the extra fuel cost at up to 29% and the extra journey time at up to three hours on some long-haul routes.

The same document estimated the hit to Air India’s profit before tax at $455 million a year, and said its direct Mumbai and Bengaluru to San Francisco flights were becoming unviable because of an extra three hours of travel time, including a technical stop in Kolkata.

It also said capacity on routes such as New York to Delhi had been trimmed by as much as 15%. In April 2025, days into the ban, Air India had told the government it expected around $600 million in extra costs over 12 months, Reuters reported.

Some flights to North America now refuel on the way. Vienna Airport will keep seeing occasional Air India refueling stops on certain Toronto, San Francisco and Vancouver flights even after the airline’s Delhi to Vienna route ends, according to Vienna.at.

Routes that have already gone

The ban has helped push routes off the map. Air India suspended Delhi to Washington Dulles from September 2025, citing a shortage of aircraft during a Boeing 787-8 cabin retrofit coupled with “the continued closure of airspace over Pakistan,” according to Reuters.

This winter it is dropping Delhi to Copenhagen, with the last flight scheduled for October 23 per AeroRoutes, and Delhi to Vienna at the end of October. AeroTime reports that Air India pointed to the Pakistan closure, high fuel prices and aircraft availability together, so the ban is one cause among several.

Pakistan pays a price too. Its defense ministry said the closure cost the PAA Rs4.1 billion in overflight revenue between April 24 and June 30, 2025, as it affected 100 to 150 Indian aircraft a day and cut transit traffic by almost 20%.

What travelers should expect

For anyone booked on an Indian airline between India and Europe, the Gulf or North America before November 24, schedules already assume the detour, so this renewal should not trigger new cancellations by itself.

Foreign airlines are not covered by the ban and can still cross Pakistan. Air India’s own October 2025 document said passengers were shifting to those carriers for the shorter flight times.

The pattern of the past 18 months suggests the next decision will come shortly before November 24. The bans have been renewed every time so far, so travelers on these routes should plan as if the longer flights are here to stay.