Airblue has formally inducted two A319 airbuses into its fleet. This was announced by Syed Nasir Ali, Managing Director, Airblue in a ceremony on Friday. He said after the induction of two more new aircraft in its fleet, Airblue has now eight aircraft. Airblue has acquired two new latest fly-by-wire technology airbuses manufactured in 2008, on dry lease.
The aircraft arrived in Pakistan from Amman on August 11, 2008 and will start the scheduled flights from August 18. He said both aircraft have a configuration of some 144 economy class leather seats. Airblue is first airline in Pakistan to introduce new single aisle aircraft in last 25 years.
Airblue is taking the lead in the growing trend of single-class cabins rather offering both business and economy seating and introduced whole-cabin economy class with world-class perks such as in-flight entertainment, larger-than-average legroom and etc.
He said that Airblue has also ordered 14 more new aircraft with advance technology like video-on-demand and other services and added that the delivery of these aircraft would be started from coming July. He said that Airblue has proved its self as the largest private airline in Pakistan, introducing innovations in customer convenience such as e-ticketing, wireless mobile check-in and self check-in kiosks for last four years.
The airline currently has flights to six major domestic cities in Pakistan and three daily flights to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar, as well as a daily Flight between Manchester in the United Kingdom and Islamabad.
Airblue has planned to expand its domestic operations to Multan, Sukkur and flights between Islamabad and Lahore and international operations to Kuwait, Muscat, Delhi and Bombay. A large number of officials from CAA and Airblue were present on the occasion.