Airliners-India.com

karatecatman · Guest

www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/21-May-2009/Indiabound-PIA-flights-halfempty
India-bound PIA flights half-empty
By: Javed Mahmood And Sadia Saeed

May 21, 2009
KARACHI - Pakistan International Airlines is running half-empty flights to India as the neighbouring country has tightened visa policy, causing millions of rupees loss to the national flag-carrier ever week, the sources concerned told TheNation.
The state-run airline is currently operating six flights a week to India with only 45-52 per cent utilisation of capacity as India has slashed the issuance of visas to the visitors after Mumbai attacks, the sources said. Before Mumbai incidents, PIA flights to India were operating with over 70pc capacity, the sources added.
It is said that the top PIA officials have requested the Defence Ministry to reduce the number of flights to avert increasing financial losses. But the Ministry, under pressure from the federal govt high ups, has asked PIA to continue with the current schedule of flights on the plea that cut in flights would further damage Pakistan’s ties with India.
They pointed out that after Mumbai attacks, on the one hand, the Indian govt has tightened visa rules while on the other, the number of visitors has dropped sharply because of tension between the two countries.
Air India, that was operating two flights to Pakistan every week, had already suspended its flights, but the federal government officials were not willing to reduce the number of PIA flights, fearing that doing so could annoy the Indian government, claimed the sources. Despite immense financial crisis in the airline, PIA continues to operate on its routes to India, although after Mumbai attacks, Air India had stopped all its operations to Pakistan.
“Before the Mumbai attacks, PIA was operating 10 flights a week to India. There were three weekly flights for Delhi from Karachi, on Karachi-Mumbai route PIA was operating PK275, four times a week. The Airline undertakes three flights- PK 271-from Lahore to Delhi. However, after the 26/11 attacks, PIA is operating six flights a week to Mumbai and New Delhi. The national airline is now operating two flights on each of these routes, making a total of 6 flights in a week, said an official from PIA.

Spiderguy252

The_Goat · Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 2:59 pm Post subject:

Jaysit · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 4346

Why don't they just send smaller aircraft? Don't they have a fleet of ATRs?

iflytb20 · Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 8:04 pm Post subject:

d3vski · Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 1:22 am Post subject:

believe it or not,

Ive seen Indians using PIA as a cheaper alternative to get to the middle east!

I was travelling BA from BOM and the gate next door was a PIA 737. I was chatting to a passenger on that flight and i thought he was a paki visting family or something but it turned out he was and indian in transit to Dubai via Karachi!

Spiderguy252 · Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 5:26 pm Post subject:

The_Goat · Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 5:44 pm Post subject:

iah87 · Member Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 2567

But dont you need a transit visa for Indians going through Pakistan. If it is, it may not be worth the hassle.

Manny · Member Joined: 10 Feb 2007 Posts: 292

That's a very pessimistic way of looking at the situation. I would say the flights are half full. Wink

On a serious note. Does PIA still fly its B742's to BOM or is it the new B777.

vivekman · Member Joined: 26 Dec 2006 Posts: 1897 Location: BOM

ssbmat · Member Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 1710

Too bad that India is even allowing PIA to fly. Post Mumbai attacks, they should have imposed a no-fly on Pakistan carriers. Maybe the reverse also would have applied-but would have affected Pakistan much more than the likes of AI/9W/KF.
I have flown to the West during the no-fly restrictions of 2001-2002 and it wasnt a huge deviation.

Had we cut off ties with Pakistan, it would have been brought down to its knees even quicker.

TKMCE · Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Posts: 957

Earlier as d3vski and "The-Goat" mentioned there was a good amount of transit traffic to the middle east. THe Calicut Dubai connection via BOM and KHI was notoriously cheap (the CCJ-BOM connection was in a bus!) but now CCJ has opened up and there is no shortage of cheap fares from CCJ directly to the ME, the atraffic has all but dried up!!!

This cheapo gulf traffic was not exclusive to PIA, the old Balkan Bulgarian (LZ) before it folded up used to do high load factors on their MLE-Middle East -Sofia flights. No, these were not filled wth holidaying Bulgarians returning from Male, but instead wtih cheapo ticket travellers to ME from Kerala connecting from TRV on the Indian Airlines TRV-MLE flight. Even other folded up airlines like Air Maldives and ZAS airline of Egypt used to fil up with such pax.

Cheers

malQ · Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:26 pm Post subject:

Curious, what are the reliability levels and loads for the flights to/from India/Pakistan nowadays? Where can I see statistics if any, and also what are the chances of IC/AI resuming services on this route?

Jaysit · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 4346

sanhin2 · Member Joined: 08 Dec 2008 Posts: 76

i had read somewhere that PIA offer dirt cheap fares from BOM/DEL to the Middle east/ wouldnt this be enough for the people ( the laborers) to travel by PIA and be enough to fill up a plane?