Airblue wins best Pakistani airline award

Dubai Pakistan's largest private airline, Airblue, has won the ‘Best Pakistani Airline' award for providing quality services to its passengers. The award was given by the Consumers Association of Pakistan in its annual consumers choice awards ceremony held recently. Receiving the award on behalf of Airblue, Director Airport Operations Airblue, Syed Armaan said: "It is an occasion to be proud of and an honour to be recognised in the eyes of Airblue's passengers as the best airline in Pakistan. This achievement shall make us strive to provide even better flying experience to our customers. We will continue to work hard and always provide our customers service par excellence." Since its launch in 2004, the airline has been growing gradually and has tapped its own niche markets, he said. The airline carried 480,000 passengers on domestic flights in Pakistan and some 624,000 passengers on its international flights during 2011. Saddaf Aslam Jalil, Country Manager of Airblue in the UAE, said that Airblue is Pakistan's second largest and fastest growing airline after the national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). Airblue operates an all Airbus A320 family aircraft fleet with an average age of less than three years and provides scheduled air service to 10 domestic and international destinations. Saddaf said Airblue launched its first international flight to Dubai in 2005 with a daily flight to Karachi. But it has seen rapid growth with seven flights daily from three airports in the UAE to four different destinations in Pakistan. "We have received tremendous response from the UAE and our policy of low fares and quality service also helped us get more passengers," said Saddaf.