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Direct flights: Muscat to Lahore

Catherine Deshayes

Pakistan's biggest private airline Airblue has launched its direct flight between Muscat and Lahore, and will operate three flights a week initially, and plans to add two more within three months.

The Pakistani Ambassador said that the new flights will go a long way to enhancing connectivity and people to people contacts between the two destinations.

The city of Lahore is the capital of the Punjab. It occupies a central position on the banks of the Ravi and is generally known as The Heart of Pakistan.

Plans are also afoot to launch flights from Muscat to Islamabad and Karachi in early 2009.

Airblue's General Manager for Marketing, Sarosh Bhatti, said, "We are certain that the Muscat-Lahore route will serve a growing number of passengers between our two countries.

"We are hopeful that the demand will enable us to increase our frequencies to and from Muscat in a short period of a time," Mr Bhatti went on to say.

Airblue is Pakistan's second largest airline and has the youngest fleet of aircraft in the country, with new planes in the pipeline.

Airblue will be expanding its operations to Saudi Arabia, London, Birmingham, Scandinavia and the Far East in the coming months.

Mr Bhatti said, "The airline is also hoping to increase the frequency as demand from the estimated 300,000 Pakistani expatriates living in Dubai increases." There are 30,000 passengers on Airblue flights each month between Pakistan and Dubai.

There are 90,000 Pakistanis living in Muscat, and Airblue hopes they will take advantage of the new direct flights.

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