ISLAMABAD: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has increased its flightsto the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in order to improve its performance inthe aviation sector, an official said.
“PIA has connected more cities to the UAE as it launched flights fromFaisalabad and Multan to Dubai.The first flight from the Faisalabad-Dubaisector to fly on Thursday while the inaugural flight from Dubai to Multanlanded on Monday.The flights will operate twice weekly,” Athar Awan, PIA’sPublic Affairs Manager said in an interview with Arab News.
The launch of the new flights was celebrated at an inaugural ceremony atDubai’s Terminal 1, where Jamal Al Hai, Deputy CEO of Dubai Airports,welcomed Ghulam Dastagir, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UAE, Ahmed AmjadAli, the Consul General of Pakistan in Dubai, and PIA’s seniorrepresentatives on Monday.
“We have increased Pakistan to Dubai flights from 35 to 39 weekly andPakistan to Abu Dhabi from 15 to 21 weekly with new flights from Islamabad,Peshawar, and Lahore,” Awan said, adding that PIA had also increased thenumber of flights to Saudi Arabia.
“As for Jeddah, we added seven new flights which increased the weeklyfrequency from 35 to 42.
The airline started two weekly new flights from Quetta to Jeddah andincreased its weekly frequency to Medina from 10 to 11 flights and Riyadhfrom 10 to 14 including 2 new weekly flights from Multan,” he said.
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Awan added that the new flights would be particularly beneficial for thebusiness community in Faisalabad and residents of Pakistan’s southernregion as otherwise they would have had to catch a flight either fromLahore or Islamabad.
Pakistan is the fourth-largest market for Dubai in terms of passengervolume, with four airlines operating to eight destinations on a weeklybasis, with passenger numbers between Dubai and Pakistan reaching twomillion in the first half of 2019.
“The Middle East is the most traveled region by Pakistanis, we are focusingmore in this region,” Awan said, adding that the entire fleet wasoperational now and that “the airline has started another new flight fromSialkot to Kuwait this week, in addition to another flight from Peshawar toDammam with Peshawar to Abu Dhabi to be operational next month”.