JS Air and Airblue announced the launch of their collaborated efforts of starting commuter service on socio economic routes in Pakistan at a press conference held in Karachi on Thursday.
Speaking at the occasion, Air Commodore® Munawar Alam Siddiqui, Chairman JS Air said that this in itself was a very important day in the history of aviation in Pakistan as such a joint venture had never taken place between any two air operators in Pakistan.
He said that the first socio economic route that JS Air and Airblue will operate is the Gwadar – Karachi route. The volume of flights would soon be increased with addition of several other short haul destinations.
The two operators share a joint vision of connecting the socio economic areas to the bigger cities in Pakistan.
Also present at the press brief were, Mr. Shahid Khakan Abbasi, COO, Airblue, Air Cdre.® Rizwan Yusuf, CEO, JS Air & Ms. Nadia Siddiqui, Group Head of Corporate Communications at JS Group.
JS Air is a recently launched charter aircraft company by JS (Jahangir Siddiqui) Group which is one of Pakistan’s most diversified and progressive financial services groups. The groups core is JS Finance which operates market leading companies in asset management, investment banking, insurance and trade finance. The group also includes five vertical businesses; JS Industrial, JS Infocom, JS Property, JS Resources and JS Transportation(which JS Air is a part of). JS Air is a regional air charter business established to serve relatively low passenger-volume routes for commercial airlines as well as providing executive charter services to the oil and gas industry and other leading businesses.
Airblue commenced operations in 2004 and currently operates a fleet of five Airbus A-320 and A-321 aircraft. It is Pakistan's fastest-growing domestic airline, offering business and economy seating. It operates 24 flights daily, serving Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar and Faisalabad within Pakistan. In 2005, it commenced short-haul international operations to Dubai and is finalizing plans to operate additional long-haul routes. Airblue recently placed a US$790 million order with Airbus to purchase 10 additional aircraft with deliveries commencing in 2008.
Airblue is pleased to announce the commencement of operation on Karachi – Gwadar – Karachi sector w.e.f 17June 2006. Initially there would be 6 flights a week operated by JSAir Beechcraft 1900 aircraft as per following schedule:
ED702 DEP KHI 0700 ARR GWD 0825
ED703 DEP GWD 0845 ARR KHI 1010
One month after the commencement of Operation on Gwadar sector, Airblue is planning to introduce a second frequency on the Gwadar route to operate in the afternoon.
The Government of Pakistan has designated Airblue as the second national carrier and efforts are underway to launch daily flights to Manchester from December 2006.
