With 32 percent growth in passengers from Madinah, Pakistan International Airline (PIA) is planning to commence a direct flight in a week from Madinah to Lahore from the next Umrah season likely to start in January 2013. While talking to Pakistani journalists at PIA office Madinah, district sales manager PIA Madinah Shahid Hussain said that presently PIA is operating three flights weekly from Madinah to Pakistan.
That includes two direct flights for Karachi and one flight for Islamabad. Now there is demand for Lahore, therefore PIA has planned to commence its direct flight from Lahore- Madinah-Lahore from next Umrah season to facilitate Punjab based passengers, he added.
A flight is also being operated for Multan via Karachi to facilitate the passengers of South Punjab, while another direct flight from Madinah to Peshawar is under consideration, but its subject to availability of aircrafts. After commencement of flight for Madinah to Lahore, PIA's flight from Madinah will reach four flights weekly from three. Currently three flights in a week are operating from Madinah to Pakistan. These are: Madinah-Karachi; Madinah-Karachi-Multan and Madinah-Islamabad, he mentioned.
Some 55 percent of passengers of Madinah are for South Punjab, therefore a flight from Madinah to Multan via Karachi has started to further increase the number of passengers, Shahid said.
Earlier, the Madinah office was working as a service station and became online on July 1, 2011 and since then the revenue is increasing considerably. PIA's Madinah station was earning revenue of some 16 million riyals when it was working off-line. However, Madinah revenue was enhanced to 20 million riyal in 2011, Shahid informed. In addition, some 723,000 riyals were earned on account of excess baggage.
"The revenue of PIA's Madinah Station was 20. 43 million in 2011, whereas the revenue has surged to 20.7 million till October 2012 as against the target of 26 million riyals for this year", he added. He hoped that the target would be achieved easily end of December 2012.
Talking about the passengers, he said that the number of passengers from Madinah to Pakistan is gradually increasing and it has posted a growth of 32 percent during this year. Some 11,992 passengers travelled to Pakistan by PIA from Madinah during 2011 and this number so far has increased to 13,068 this year. PIA is facing tight competition at the Madina station as some seven airlines are operating from Madinah this include Saudia Airline, Qatar Air, Emirates, Gulf Air and Turkish Airline etc, he said.
Shahid further informed that all 43,000 Hajjis now in Madinah would travel via bus to Jeddah hajj terminal from where they will take their flights to Pakistan. "The Hajjis would be transported by Pakistan Hajj Mission in Saudi Arabia and we are expecting departures on time of Hujjaj by buses from Madinah to Jeddah Hajj Terminal" he mentioned. Meanwhile, the airline's Post Hajj Operation is continuing with on-time departures from Jeddah to Pakistan.
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