Shaheen crew being hired by Airblue

[AirBlue]

its not in black in white yet but my dad just told me that about 4 Capt. and 10 f/o's from shaheen have been inducted into ED. total about 17 have been taken and being send for training soon. i guess now the planes will come for sure cuz they are sending the crew for thier training

[cheetah]

Did not know that Shaheen had Pakistani crew. Are they all ex-airforce too?

[AirBlue]

yea i think most of them are...every single crew member had applied for ED of Shaheen and now they got hired so they are moving there....Shaheen has cockpit crew pakistani now n cabin crew i think the russians ... not sure...any one who traveled on them recently can tell

[Amaad Lone]

The last nail in the Shaheen's coffin.

Its a bad sign when the cockpit crew starts to bail.

Shaheen should pool in its resources with Aero Asia, which will now face the brunt of the private owned Air Blue. Both airlines should merge, and try to survive as the low cost Pakistani carrier.

With Air Blue operating 28 weekly flights to Dubai, the chances of people flying on Aero Asia are slim, and the loss of Dubai is going to hurt their balance sheet big time.

Aero Asia/Shaheen after merging should concentrate on improving their fleet and services, otherwise one more year of Air Blue and good bye Aero Asia.

Amaad

[AirBlue]

Importance of rules and policies: Aero Asia and Shaheen never took the CAA policies seriously. They just tried to get by and get through all the things going around like fleet and registration, services, etc. Where as Airblue came in the market prepared.

Equipment: Now, why would a Shaheen airline Capt. of a B737-200 fly with the airline when he has a better option of flying an A320, and earning experience on a better and a new generation aircraft.

Pay: Right now Airblue is paying 150,000 to the Capt. and 100,000 to the F/O's. The flight purser i think is getting something in between 40 and 50 K and the flight attendants are getting between 20-30 K.

ED planes:As far as thier own a.c's are concerned, about 3 A320's are due hopefully ( again hopefully ) by the end of March 2006. In summers they hope they will be able to find the A330's.

The question in my mind is still that if they have made a deal of $1 Billion, then shouldn't they be buying brand new planes for that price ? If some one can elaborate the pricing for 8 A320 and 2 A330's it will be really great as i dont know the pricing of the aircraft's.

Queries: One more thing, will it be benificial if Airblue include F class along with J and Y on thier A330's? Will people pay more for the F class. Those of you who have traveled ED in thier J class can tell more about it. I guess Amaad and Moin ( who i suppose have flown in J class ) can explain if the F class on the A330's whould/should be benificial

[B777240ER]

Aero Asia/Shaheen after merging should concentrate on improving their fleet and services

I agree. They both operate B732A. Also with combined frequencies they can incur lower costs on some routes giving ED and PK some competition.

BTW have Shaheen Air and Aero Asia made a profit yet and if so how much?

With ED getting more planes which means they can expand more in Pakistan the other 2 private companies have to lower costs.

[ord]

The last nail in the Shaheen's coffin.

Its a bad sign when the cockpit crew starts to bail.

Shaheen should pool in its resources with Aero Asia, which will now face the brunt of the private owned Air Blue. Both airlines should merge, and try to survive as the low cost Pakistani carrier.

With Air Blue operating 28 weekly flights to Dubai, the chances of people flying on Aero Asia are slim, and the loss of Dubai is going to hurt their balance sheet big time.

Aero Asia/Shaheen after merging should concentrate on improving their fleet and services, otherwise one more year of Air Blue and good bye Aero Asia.

Amaad

Good points Amaad. I think we are going to see a segmentation of the airline industry in Pakistan in the next 5-10 years, with ED increasingly taking up the premium end of the market, esp. if they expand the trunck line operations between KHI-LHE/ISB and introduce sectors like LHE-ISB, as well as on international sectors where ED operates.

Shaheen/Aero Asia will largely be relegated to the low end, hence your suggestion that they transform in to a low cost carrier makes imminent sense, though I might add that the gas guzzling 732s and DC-9s won't work well with this model.

PIA will be stuck in between. I think there is a profitable market there, but one problem they will face is that their J class premium product is going to take a big hit on routes where ED operate. Combine that with the intense international competition for premium traffic (BA for Northern Pakistan-EU/N.A., EK for Europe/N.A. esp. from KHI, CX and SQ on the East Asia scene) and PIA's premium revenue is going to take a big hit, unless immediate changes are brought in. (Some have been done, but there is a long way to go.)

[ord]

ED planes:As far as thier own a.c's are concerned, about 3 A320's are due hopefully ( again hopefully ) by the end of March 2006. In summers they hope they will be able to find the A330's.

The question in my mind is still that if they have made a deal of $1 Billion, then shouldn't they be buying brand new planes for that price ? If some one can elaborate the pricing for 8 A320 and 2 A330's it will be really great as i dont know the pricing of the aircraft's.

Queries: One more thing, will it be benificial if Airblue include F class along with J and Y on thier A330's? Will people pay more for the F class. Those of you who have traveled ED in thier J class can tell more about it. I guess Amaad and Moin ( who i suppose have flown in J class ) can explain if the F class on the A330's whould/should be benificial

I think these 3 A320s you mentioned plus the A330s will be short-term leases, as they wait for the 8 A320s and 2 A330s.

I suspect the hold-up on the 10 aircraft order is that they are doing a private placement and then will arranage a purchase-sale-lease, where they buy the a/c, sell it to a financial institution, and lease it back. These deals are rather complex and take some time to carry out. It should be noted that these types of deals are very common these days, as airlines don't like to have fast-depreciating assets (a/c) on their own balance sheets and a number of carriers use the buy/sell/lease-back method to guard against this.

Airblue,

I think they can ideally go with a Business-First type of configuration, where it is a hybrid F/J calss product. (basically a souped up J class). There is not a large enough market for F class from Pakistan and even if they got some 6-th freedom traffic, it would still be difficult to get the desired yields. However, I think an upmarket J class product can work along with and economy plus section.

[AirBlue]

Ord,

I dont personally think that Airblue will go for the Y+ class. They might but i dont think they will. Reason is that Y+ is basically a waste which sensible passangers will easily understand. If they do they will fo sure have a better inflight product and a better way to present it rather than put a curtain in the aisle

[ord]

Ord,

I dont personally think that Airblue will go for the Y+ class. They might but i dont think they will. Reason is that Y+ is basically a waste which sensible passangers will easily understand. If they do they will fo sure have a better inflight product and a better way to present it rather than put a curtain in the aisle

Airblue,

When I say Y+, I don't mean PIA style Y+, but Y+ more like what United has on international routes, i.e. 5-6" of extra leg-room. You are right, PIA 777 Y+ is a complete joke and I can see why no one would want to pay for it.

I think there is a big market of Pak traffic that would be willing to pay extra for more legroom, but can't necessarily afford J class seating. Also, it is a good way to build a customer loyallty program, for Y class frequent flyers.

[AirBlue]

The way PIA has shown what a Y+ is like, passangers will surely think before they make a move even if ED does make its Y+ like United. And yea the Frequent Flyer program can be pretty attractive. But then if they have Y+ it shud have a complete partition like the one between PIA's J and Y+. Now if they have the same kind of partition in J,Y+ and Y, they can call it F, J and Y