Shaheen Air: Featured Airline

Overview

Shaheen Air is Paksitan's second national carrier and has now been operating for over 17 years. It is a privately owned Full Service Carrier based in Karachi. It is wholly owned Tawa International based in Canada. Shaheen Air carried over 1.2 million passengers over the last 12 months and according to Shaheen Air it has a 23% market share in the Pakistan.

Fleet

Shaheen currently operates a fleet of 12 x 737-200s (125 seats in an all economy layout). The airline is currently negotiating the delivery of a further 4 x 737-900s.
In the past the carrier has wet leased wide-bodied aircraft into its fleet, for example in the first half of 2008 the carrier wet-leased a wide-bodied aircraft to operate from Leeds Bradford, UK to Pakistan.
Long term the carrier is keen to start wide-bodied operations again, but this is viewed as two years away. In the meantime there is the potential to lease Boeing 757 aircraft to serve longer range destinations in Europe and the Far East.

Network

According to the carrier, it operates to over 18 destinations from 6 airports in Pakistan. The network is focused upon the Middle East, international destinations currently served include:

Mashad, Iran
Kuwait City, Kuwait
Doha, Qatar
Dubai, UAE
Sharjah, UAE
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Al Ain, UAE
Muscat, Oman

Shaheen Air operates the largest number of flights from Karachi with 44 weekly flights (Flightbase May 3rd - 9th 2010) and Islamabad and Lahore are the second and third largest bases, with 21 and 19 weekly flights respectively. Dubai is the fourth largest airport with 14 weekly services. The carrier serves Dubai from Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.

Shaheen Air will continue to grow their Middle East presence, but is also ambitiously planning to expand into the Far East and into Europe, serving both the VFR, migrant and leisure markets. The carrier has mentioned operating to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China and Sri Lanka.

Personnel

In term of network development Mr Muhammad Arshad Jalil is the key contact, he is Vice Chairman Operations. The Chairman and CEO is Mr Khalid Mahmud Sehbai.

Airline Requirements

Shaheen Air is currently analysing new routes and is interested in operation from UAE/Pakistan within a four to five hour range and with options for a stopover to a further destination.
Shaheen Airlines is currently looking at Thailand , Malaysia Indonesia.

You can send your proposal through to Shaheen Air via Route Exchange, click here

You can also watch an interview with Mr Muhammad Arshad Jalil at Routes Asia in Adelaide, click here

Richard Maslen

Richard Maslen has travelled across the globe to report on developments in the aviation sector as airlines and airports have continued to evolve and…