Karachi: The flyadeal, Saudi Arabia’s fast-growing low-cost airline, has begun scheduled flights to Lahore amid a fanfare of celebrations marking the airline’s fifth destination in Pakistan.
Flight F3 655 from Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport arrived in Pakistan’s second largest city on Monday to a traditional water cannon salute followed by ceremonial cake-cutting festivities graced by airport and airline officials, including crew operating the inaugural flight.
The new twice-weekly flights take flyadeal’s total capacity between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan up to 18 scheduled services each week across five cities, which include Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar and Sialkot – all launched in phases since February this year.
Steven Greenway, flyadeal Chief Executive Officer, said: “It’s been an incredible achievement to build a countrywide operation from one to five cities across Pakistan in just eight months. Entering any market is always a baby step process. But our operational and commercial teams have done an impressive job to plan, launch, expand and set up the necessary infrastructure so quickly to sell, market and promote our flights in a short space of time.”
Farooq Ahmad, flyadeal Head of Sales, speaking on arrival at Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore, added: “Pakistan has proved to be one of flyadeal’s success stories. We’ve matured very quickly in a country building confidence within the travel agency community to sell, and among consumers to fly with us especially being a relatively new entrant to a dynamic market that Pakistan is. We look forward to continue building our partnerships given our extended reach in the country.”
As capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Lahore is also known as the home of poets, philiosphers and artists. A major centre for education, publishing and being the country’s cultural hub, Lahore is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature.
The Lahore route will cater to a mix of inbound business traffic and migrant workers, as well as the large outbound Pakistani expatriate community living in the Kingdom, with the airline’s continued focus to offer value for money low fares.
All flyadeal services to and from Pakistan are operated with Airbus A320 aircraft in a single 186-seat Economy Class configuration.
flyadeal currently operates a modern fleet of 42 A320s from bases in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam to more than 30 seasonal and year-round destinations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and South Asia. By 2030, in line with Saudi Vision 2030, flyadeal expects to triple its network to over 100 destinations with more than 100 aircraft.
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