SaudiGulf Airlines to start flying on lucrative Pakistan route

Will start operation from October 15 and offer 20% cheaper tickets

KARACHI: Financially-troubled Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will soon face another competitor on its most lucrative route - Pakistan-Saudi Arabia, which has been highly profitable for the national flag carrier without much competition for decades. SaudiGulf Airlines is going to start its operation on the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia route from October 15 and will offer 20% cheaper tickets than those of PIA and Saudi Arabian Airlines - the only major carriers on the route.

Dammam-based SaudiGulf Airlines will run 14 flights per week to major cities in Pakistan - Lahore, Islamabad, Sialkot and Karachi - connecting the kingdom’s main cities of Dammam, Jeddah, Abha and Riyadh, as part of its international route expansion programme. The airline’s management announced this at a press conference at the Karachi Expo Centre on Tuesday during its participation in the Pakistan Travel Mart 2018.

The Pakistan-Saudi Arabia route is the busiest as last year Saudi embassy issued 1.5 million visas and is targeting 2 million visas this year. It is making the visa process easier which is part of the Saudi Arabia Vision 2030. “Our research shows a great potential in the PakistanSaudi Arabia route; that’s why we included Pakistan in our expansion plan,” stated SaudiGulf Airlines Chief Commercial Officer Karim Makhlouf. Pakistan’s aviation industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. International traffic in the industry grew 6% to 14.6 million passengers in fiscal year 2017 compared to the preceding year.



But the domestic air travel growth was only 3% to 7.17 million passengers in the period, far lower than what the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicted. It forecast a 9.9% growth through 2020. PIA has heavy liabilities of about Rs406 billion against assets of only Rs111 billion. The national carrier incurred a loss of Rs360 billion by the end of 2017, said an audit report submitted to the Supreme Court by the auditor general of Pakistan (AGP).

The apex court in May had instructed the AGP to conduct an audit of PIA for the last 10 years. Private-sector carrier Shaheen Air International (SAI) has cut its fleet to half, from 15 aircraft to only 7.

SAI, the employer of about 2,000 people, is on the verge of shutting down as it has accumulated debt of billions of rupees owed to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), ground handling companies and others.

On the other hand, SereneAir, despite completing its requisite period, has not announced any expansion plan and is running on only three aircraft. Middle Eastern airlines have given a tough time to Pakistan’s local airlines, which often call for revising the ‘open sky policy’ to a ‘fair sky policy.’ In this scenario, the PakSaudi route is very much profitable for the domestic airlines, as hundreds of thousands of people go to Makkah and Madina for pilgrimage every year.



SaudiGulf Airlines is also offering to facilitate passengers going to Umrah with visa process. The airline will use the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam as the hub of its operations. Its passengers will land on the domestic terminal at the Jeddah Airport instead of the international terminal, which takes 6-7 hours for immigration process.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2018.

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