Airblue starts Abu Dhabi run

Other planned routes include Sharjah, Delhi, Muscat and Kuwait.

Welcome: the first Air Blue flight arrives at Abu Dhabi International Airport from Lahore, Pakistan.

Airblue, Pakistan's second largest airline, has launched flights to Abu Dhabi, the beginning of an expansion drive into the Gulf region. The carrier started its four times a week service between Lahore and Abu Dhabi International Airport yesterday, and said it plans to increase its frequencies to Abu Dhabi and also Al Ain to two flights a day.

Airblue, which only has two existing international routes to Dubai and Manchester, has also outlined plans to begin serving Sharjah, Muscat and Kuwait as well as with Delhi, Kuala Lumpur and Birmingham. The new destinations will be launched starting from this year until 2010, as it takes delivery of 14 new A320 aircraft from Airbus. Airblue operates a fleet of eight leased aircraft to nine destinations in Pakistan and abroad.

The Gulf's construction boom has brought hundreds of thousands of Pakistani workers in to the UAE, particularly those hailing from the Peshawar region. A top priority for Airblue is opening services from Peshawar to Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, according to Sarosh Bhatti, the general manager of marketing at the Karachi-based airline. Mr Bhatti said the carrier would have chosen Peshawar as its first route to Abu Dhabi, had its available aircraft not been based in Lahore.

In the next few months Airblue hopes to begin up to three weekly flights from Peshawar to Al Ain and five flights a week to Abu Dhabi. It is also planning four flights a week to Abu Dhabi from Islamabad. The expansion plans of Airblue, the largest privately held carrier in Pakistan, has not been without challenges, however. The airline has been unable to win additional landing spots at Dubai International Airport, Airblue officials say.

Also, it had planned to fly to Sharjah twice a day beginning this month, but that has been put on hold due to undetermined issues between Sharjah's civil aviation department and their counterparts in Pakistan, Mr Bhatti said. The delay has cost the airline roughly Dh11 million (US$2.9m) so far in aircraft leases and lost ticket sales, the company said. Once the issue is resolved Airblue could start service to Sharjah "within weeks", said Mr Bhatti.

The choice of Abu Dhabi as Airblue's third international destination was hailed by local aviation authorities, which have set a goal of making the emirate a global airline hub. "Their arrival is reason for further celebration in that the airline becomes the 40th airline to operate from Abu Dhabi International Airport," said Mohammed al Bulooki, the vice president of airline marketing and aeronautical revenue at Abu Dhabi Airports Company (Adac), which manages the emirate's airport infrastructure.

Adac is forecasting a record year for Abu Dhabi airport, where the growth of Etihad and other carriers should push traffic figures past nine million passengers this year. [e-mail]