Pakistan International Airline's first flight PK 743 from Lahore to Madinah via Karachi left 6:10pm (PST) carrying 168 passengers, PIA spokesman said here on Monday. After Karachi, Multan and Islamabad, Lahore has also been added for a direct connection to Madinah by one weekly flight on Mondays. Passengers will now travel directly to Madinah from Pakistan.
The airline is now operating flights to Madinah from Karachi every Monday and Friday, Islamabad on Wednesday while from Multan on Friday. The return flight PK 744 Madinah-Karachi-Lahore has 400 confirmed bookings with 202 passengers for Lahore and 198 for Karachi.
PIA Madinah flights would generate good business for the airline and it was expected that the new connection from Lahore would add to the revenue of the airline, PIA spokesman added. He said the airline was planning to increase flight frequencies of existing destinations, while new destinations would be added to the airline's network in the near future to achieve better revenue income. While, the airline has started achieving operating profit since September 2012.-PR