Pakistan’s AirSial secures int’l traffic rights

AirSial (PF, Karachi Int’l) launched its first international charter passenger flight from Lahore Int’l, Pakistan to Dubai Int’l in the United Arab Emirates, on December 30, the airline announced.

This comes as AirSial on December 25, 2021, celebrated the first anniversary of having conducted domestic scheduled flight operations with a Regular Public Transport Licence thus rendering it eligible for international flights.

According to the ch-aviation schedules data, AirSial currently operates the following regular domestic schedules from its base at Karachi Int’l with a fleet of three A320-200s leased from AerCap:

3x daily to Islamabad Quaid-e-Azam Int’l;
2x daily to Lahore;
4x weekly to Peshawar; and
3x weekly to Quetta.
Local media reports the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority has now granted AirSial permission for domestic and international charter flights, ferrying passengers and cargo.

The carrier plans to introduce charter services in two phases, starting from Karachi to Islamabad, Lahore, and Peshawar before expanding internationally from Pakistan to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Mashad (Iran), Najaf (Iraq), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), and Sharjah (UAE).

In October, the PCAA had initially withheld permission for AirSial – along with PIA – Pakistan International Airlines and AirBlue – to operate international charter flights after the airlines collectively had cancelled 33.4% of their domestic schedules since October 1, 2021, on the pretext of operational reasons but instead using their aircraft for international charters. AirSial alone had cancelled 50 or 23% of 217 domestic scheduled flights, the PCAA said.