Repatriation flights came at heavy cost
‘It’s not fair,’ says man who owes the Canadian government over $6,000
Ahmed Ali’s long-standing plans for a March break trip to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, with his wife and two kids really went sideways.
The Mississauga resident booked flights in June 2019 to visit the holy city in March 2020 as part of a pilgrimage that millions of Muslims do each year. He landed in Pakistan first and was originally planning to travel with his family to Saudi Arabia, before returning home within a week on March 22. COVID-19 and the subsequent cancellation of numerous flights led to Ali, who works as a contract teacher at the Peel District School Board, staying in Pakistan until May 3 and owing thousands to the federal government for emergency loans.
The loans, on which repayment is due in the fall, paid for flights that the Canadian government arranged with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and were much more expensive than pre-COVID-19 fares.
“It’s not fair, to be very honest,” said Ali, who is hoping that he can work out a plan with the federal government if he can’t pay the more than $6,000 owed for his family’s airfare home.
“I’m thankful that the government of Canada helped me, but I have been listening to other people from the U.S.A., from England, and they didn’t pay that much money to get back.”
In April, one-way flights for U.S. citizens travelling back from Karachi, where Ali and his family flew from, cost around $1,400. Tickets for flights from Islamabad to the United States cost about $2,042. British repatriation flights that same month from Pakistan to the U.K. cost between $866 and $908.
One-way fares for Ali and his wife, Zahida Ahmed, on their May 3 flight were $2,286 each at the time of bookings. Flights back to Canada for Ali’s two children cost about $2,000 in total.
Mississauga—Erin Mills MP Iqra Khalid said she’s been advocating for lower prices, but that the airfares are set by the airline, not the government.
Khalid also said she doesn’t anticipate late penalties being tacked onto the loans and the government’s focus has been to repatriate first, and worry about the cost later.
“I’m hopeful that those who have had to pay significantly more in order to repatriate to Canada, that they will find equity in their situation,” she said.
There were still more than 7,200 Canadians in Pakistan as of June 19, according to the federal government’s voluntary traveller registry.
“A lot of people (were) basically discouraged to take these special flights because of the cost,” said Salman Tariq, who came back to Mississauga with his wife, Kanwal Salman, and two children on an April 23 flight from Pakistan.
Tariq, who ran against Khalid in the 2019 federal election, took the emergency loan for the flight, which cost more than $10,000 for the four one-way tickets.
He wants to see the loans waived because many people are already struggling with economic hardships due to COVID-19.
“In this pandemic environment, people are already having financial troubles, so this is a big setback,” he said.
Of the more than 4,300 loans the federal government has approved through its COVID-19 emergency program for Canadians abroad, about 300 have been for travel from Pakistan, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson John Babcock said.
Another Mississauga resident, Arslan Razi, said he didn’t get a loan from the Canadian government but borrowed money from family to get back from Pakistan, along with his wife and three children.
He said he has since sold his car to help pay for the tickets.
Ali, Tariq and Razi all said they have yet to be reimbursed for their original flights out of Pakistan that were cancelled.
For Ali, he estimates total costs of the trip to be about $20,000, including accommodations and cancelled flights.
“It’s not easy, but I wanted to come back because things were not getting better (with COVID-19) in Pakistan,” he said. “Now it’s getting worse.”
To date, case numbers are much higher in Pakistan than they are in Canada, but not if adjusted for population. Cases in Pakistan have spiked recently, with more than 100,000 new infections reported in June alone, according to the Pakistan government.
Canada’s more than 8,400 COVID-19-related deaths are more than double those in Pakistan, which has reported more than 3,500 deaths.