CAA slaps Turkish Airlines with Rs100,000 fine for violating coronavirus SOPs

• Turkish Airlines has violated COVID-19 SOPs, says CAA
• Authority warns of "more stringent action" if airlines violates SOPs again
• Airline's permission for flight operations in Pakistan could be revoked, CAA warns

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Friday slapped Turkish Airlines with a fine of Rs100,000 for violating coronavirus standard operating producers(SOPs), a notification said.

The notification said that this is not the first time that the airline has gone against the rules, adding that a warning was issued to the Turkish Airlines on October 13 and 21 last year as well.

"It has been noted with serious concern that Turkish Airline again transported passenger [...] from Category-B country i.e. Dakar (Senegal) to Istanbul for onward journey to Lahore via Turkish Airline flight TKO584 on January 13, 2021, without proof of negative RT-PCR test despite warning and penalty," the notification said.

Read more: CAA issues list of countries exempted from coronavirus restrictions

The CAA warned that violation of COVID-19 SOPs would be dealt with more stringently.

It would include, but not be limited to, the revocation of operating authorisation granted to the Turkish Airlines for flight operations to/from Pakistan, the CAA warned.

In the first week of January, CAA issued a list of the countries that it has exempted from the coronavirus restrictions, an official notification stated.

Read more: Pakistan eases travel restrictions for inbound travel from UK, South Africa

According to the notification, the issued list has been divided into three categories — Category A, B, and C.

Passengers from countries in Category A will not be asked to get tested for the COVID-19, the notification said.

Australia, China, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Qatar, New Zealand, are among the 23 counties that have been included in Category A.

Read more: Coronavirus vaccine trial in Pakistan to end this week

Meanwhile, any country that is not included in Category A automatically falls into Category B. The passengers from these countries will have to present a negative COVID-19, conducted within the last 96 hours.

Although there is no country in Category C, the CAA said that in case a nation is included, the passengers from there would have to get a negative test before boarding a flight as well as after reaching Pakistan.

Pakistan has recorded 490,476 cases, 10,409 deaths, and 444,360 recoveries from coronavirus.