Airblue plan flights to London in November - Tentative.

khwateenohazraat · Post by **khwateenohazraat** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:15 pm

Selam All,

I wrote an email to Airblue the contents are below, i sent the email at 12.18 UK time this afternoon

Dear Sir/Madame,

When will Air Blue commence flights to London? Especially to Lahore, there is a need to fly direct, currently we have to suffer PIA as BA does not go direct. Now you have permission when will you start this service?

Thank you

The reply i got so quick at 13.00 UK time is as below

Dear {my name taken out} ,

Thank you for writing to us. Not that it is certain yet, but we do have plans of flying to london in November.

Thank you once again for choosing airblue. For further in person support, we are available 24/7 at 111-247-258.

Regards

Airblue Contact Center

Agent

Disclaimer: This e-mail may contain confidential information. Message privacy protected by airblue, do not provide any financial information in the e-mail. Your message may be routed to another concerned department for appropriate handling and quality control. Such routing may take more than 24 hours to reply.

I was so amazed at the speed with which they replied, not even BA reply this quick, very impressive, if they keep up like this they should do very well InshAllah.

Take Care
KH

CoyBoy · Post by **CoyBoy** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 7:00 pm

So they finally ahve an e-mail address to write to, writetous@airblue.com

GrandSlam · Post by **GrandSlam** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:59 pm

hey khwateenohazraat...HOW Do u Suffer PIA???.....I wonder wats so special abt Air Blue,My family recently travelled on Air Blue from Khi To ISB and from ISB TO KHI they travelled on Our very OWN PIA,they did'nt find anything Special In Air Blue,I myself Prefer flying PIA..Plz Temme wats so special abt Air BLue

Charliedelta11 · Post by **Charliedelta11** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:57 pm

exactly.."suffer PIA"..hmm...how biased is that ?

keep one thing in mind..air blue has not et commenced services to europe , and you dont know how good their service will be in years to come , keep that in mind before u go ranting your mouth..

Imran Hassan · Post by **Imran Hassan** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:52 am

When Air Blue and other private airlines start routes to London etc it could spell unfortunate for gulf carriers.

Adnan Anwar · Post by **Adnan Anwar** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:48 am

Imran Hassan wrote:When Air Blue and other private airlines start routes to London etc it could spell unfortunate for gulf carriers.

If AIrBlue provides and maintains its superior service when compared to Gulf Airlines, then YES, MidEast carriers will loose passengers originating from Pakistan to London.

AP-BGL · Post by **AP-BGL** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:32 pm

If airblue is starting its flights to london in november then they will be serving that route by A320 because as per my knowledge they will not be getting A330 by that time. (Correct me if i am wrong)

Amaad Lone · Post by **Amaad Lone** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:37 pm

I would imagine that if Air Blue wants to start London flights by November, then the only option might be wet leasing wide body aircraft.

A320-200 is not designed for such long haul flights.

CoyBoy · Post by **CoyBoy** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 5:05 pm

British Airways/BMed fly their A320/321 from LHR to as far away as Almaty and Bishkek in central Asia with one just stop enroute, so the aircraft can do the flight, but it may not be populr with travellers, however BA's are still going strong, personally I have had uncomfortable medium haul flights even on wide bodies including the 747.

Maybe ED could route their service with a tech stop somewhere in between.

hasan saleem · Post by **hasan saleem** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 7:13 pm

Well ED wont certainly be popular flying passengers in a A320, flying eight hours and a technical stopover in between.

CoyBoy · Post by **CoyBoy** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 7:59 pm

If they offer competitive fares I can assure you people will fly the A320 to Europe, have you seen the average Pakistani flying to UK? they couldnt careless as long as they got there cheap.

And as mentioned above BA'ss ervices are quite successful on the central asian routes.

behramjee · Post by **behramjee** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:25 pm

for god sakes Airblue hasnt up to now shown any signs of stupidity to warrant any of you all thinking and believing that they would be dumb enough to send an A 320 to UK from PAK.

hasan saleem · Post by **hasan saleem** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:51 pm

Ya True, Why on the heavens earth would they fly a A320 to UK with a techical stopover. We already have dorzens of connections being offer, PIA,Etihad,Qatar,Gulf,Emirates,Turkish,Azal, then why on earth would anyone to choose to fly a A320.

Moin · Post by **Moin** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:27 pm

Well QR have flown the A320 from DOH to ZHR, CDG and MOW, so I don't see why ED couldn't fly the A320 to LHR, but as they're are now officially getting A332's, they are primarily for the London route. I'm still surpised as to why nothing is as yet mentioned on the Airbus site. A Pakistani carrier placing an order for 10 a/c is big news.

My sisters 4pm flight to ISB was delayed today as the a/c developed a technical fault in PEW and it finally landed in KHI at 6.35pm and should be departing any time now i.e. 7.30pm. Whether this had anything to do with the PEW airport incident or an a/c fault I don't know.

I wonder if ED will continue to hold onto these 3 A320's they have right now once the new ones come along. That will give them a fleet of 11 a/c, but if you take into account the delays and techincal faults these a/c have caused, BGW especially, they might be only too glad to be rid of them.

global-pia · Post by **global-pia** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:52 pm

I read in an interview that Airblue will return the 3 leased A320s back to the leasing company, once the new aircraft join the fleet.