Airblue to begin Sharjah operations by Dec

By Muhammad Yasir

KARACHI: Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has given green signal to Airblue to start its flights to Sharjah by December, official sources told Daily Times.

According to the sources, the CAA granted permission to Airblue for conducting its daily schedule flights from Lahore and Islamabad to Sharjah, which are scheduled to begin from 15 December this year.

Sources in CAA told that Airblue will operate its two A-319 aircrafts on these routes that it has acquired this year on dry-leased. They added that Airblue would reduce its flight frequency from Islamabad-Manchester and Gulf-based flights to manage this new operation.

Sharjah authorities had allowed Airblue for carrying out its flight operations to and from Pakistan and asked to frame its flight schedule of seven weekly flights. Sharjah authorities, earlier, withheld the permission of Airblue to start its operation in the state few days before it was scheduled to fly. Airblue had planned to begin its twice a day flights on 14 August from Sharjah to Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar.

However, CAA intervened into the matter on the request of Airblue and negotiated with the Department of Civil (DCA) on the basis of bilateral Air Service Agreement (ASA) to resolve the issue.

Official added the DCA, did not agree to allow operating two daily flights, which Airblue had been granted earlier.

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