PIA to resume flights to Dubai from Faisalabad

Flights on the route had been halted seven to eight years ago

KARACHI: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is going to resume flights on the Faisalabad-Dubai and Multan-Dubai routes by the end of current month.

“Flights on these routes had been halted seven to eight years ago,” said a PIA official while talking to The Express Tribune.

The airline had stopped operating on the two routes because of two reasons. One, Emirates airline of the UAE had been locked in a tough competition with PIA by operating direct flights on these routes while PIA flew passengers via Karachi which was a nuisance for them. Second, the national flag carrier had not enough aircraft to continue flying on these routes.

Earlier, PIA shared plans to induct two new aircraft into its fleet in the days to come. It plans to add one aircraft in the last week of October and the other by mid-November.

Both will be narrow-body aircraft with seating capacity for around 160 passengers.

Emirates has been facilitating passengers who want to travel further from Dubai to other destinations, hence it is planning its routes accordingly.

Passengers from these two cities of Pakistan - Faisalabad and Multan - mostly travel to Dubai as their final destination and seldom travel any further, hence, PIA has decided to compete on these routes again.

First direct flight will depart from Faisalabad to Dubai on October 31. Sources in PIA said on Tuesday the airline had started selling tickets for the first flight and aimed to facilitate over 100 passengers.

PIA plans to run two direct flights on the Faisalabad-Dubai route every week ie on Thursday and Saturday.

The national flag carrier is resuming flights on the discontinued routes and in the past few days it has resumed or introduced dozens of routes for the Middle East, Europe and Far East.

The management of the airline, which has accumulated losses of around Rs400 billion, has claimed that PIA has turned profitable at the operational level.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2019.

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