The Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority has imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on Turkish Airlines, reported 24News HD TV Channel Friday.

According to a notification, the airline allowed two passengers to board its flight TK0584 from Istanbul to Lahore without proof of a negative RT-PCR test of the novel coronavirus. The passengers’ country of origin was Senegal. The flight from Dakar landed in Istanbul and then they continued on to Lahore.

Senegal and Turkey have both been listed as a Category B countries by Pakistan. This means that inbound passengers landing in Pakistan have to get a PCR test at least 96 hours before travelling. Turkish Airlines has been fined for allowing the passengers to fly without negative PCR tests.

Any recurrent violation of COVID-19 related SOPs shall be dealt with in a more stringent manner including but not limited to revocation of operating authorization granted to Turkish Airlines for flight operations to/from Pakistan, the CAA warned.

Turkish Airlines had previously been warned and fined for similar violations on October 13 and 21. These new SOPs were issued by the authority on January 6. It stated that 23 countries are placed in Category A which doesn’t require COVID tests.