A
Qatar Airways flight carrying over 100 passengers was diverted to Pakistan’s
Karachi due to a technical malfunction, reported news agency ANI. The flight –
QR579 – took off from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport and its
destination was Doha.

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As
the flight was diverted to Karachi many passengers complained of no
information, food or water being provided to them.

“What
is the status of QR579 – Delhi-Doha, diverted to Karachi? No information being
offered, no food or water being offered to passengers. Customer care is
clueless. Please help,” Dr Sameer Gupta, a cardiologist by profession,
tweeted.

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Another
passenger, Ramesh Raliya, said many of them have had connecting flights from
Doha, but they have not been updated about the take-off of the flight from
Karachi.

The
aircraft took off from Indira Gandhi International Airport at 3:50 am on Monday
and landed at Karachi at 5:30 am, Mr Raliya said.

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“After
landing, they made everyone to deboard and wait at the airport. It’s 9 am
now,” the passenger said in the video message. “They haven’t told us
when the flight would take off. There are women and children, and many people
have to take connecting flights from Doha,” he said.

However,
Qatar Airways has not yet issued an official statement about the incident.

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Last
year in March, an Indigo flight from Sharjah to Lucknow had made an emergency
landing at the Karachi airport in Pakistan after a passenger onboard fell sick
and later died.

An
official of the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority said the landing permission
was granted to the Captain of the Lucknow-bound IndiGo flight 6E1412 after an
elderly passenger — identified as 67-year-old Habib ur Rehman — fell seriously
ill.

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Pakistan
reopened its airspace for Indian flights in July 2019 some five months after the neighbouring country launched an airstrike on the former’s territory. The disruption had forced international airlines to take costly and time-consuming detours to the north
and south, adding flight time for passengers and fuel costs for airlines.

Hundreds
of commercial and cargo flights are affected each day. Reuters counted 311 such
flights between four airports in Europe and four in Southeast Asia.