I have no real knowledge of Shaheen's product, their service nor their punctuality - however I'd say in one regard they hold an advantage over Swefly and UKIA in that they are a Pakistani airline.

Can't imagine too many punters of non-Pakistani extraction wanting to fly to Lahore, Islamabad etc, therefore a Pakistani airline used to the customs and culture of Pakistani life is surely beter placed to serve this market.

bmi have surely got more lucrative/easier places to fly to.

Will a smaller airline from Pakistan, whether it is Shaheen or Aero Asia or AirBlue have any more luck flying from one or two Pakistani cities to one or two regional UK airports.

The best airline to link regional UK with Pakistani cities would be an "Emirates-Lite" airline, perhaps based at Sharjah or one of the smaller UAE cities. A310s or 767-200s would be fine aircraft, to hub say three UK cities with three cities in Pakistan or India. Some people might use the airline as a low cost way to have a holiday in Thailand.

Air Blue is doing very well on MAN ISB and when they get the A330 will get even better

Ian

Shaheen are not competing against PIA is PIA flying LBA or targetting that community?

You'll have to explain your logic newscaster.

Shaheen will be competing directly against PIA from Manchester.

Drive time from Hudds and Bradders to MAN and LBA ain't that much different.

If the target community was based in Harrogate I'd be with you.

PIA has been targetting the W Yorkshire Pakistan community for its MAN flights for years and has been carrying many pax from this region, so Shaheen is competing with them.

Suzeman

See also the LBIA thread for further details of the first flight.

Understand from a reliable source that the Shaheen flights to LTN have met with a setback, and are unlikely to start until at least the end of April at the earliest.

It was a complete shambles at LBA as far as air safety was concerned!

Be interested to know what their fuel policy is!!!!

Honiley/Sean Dillon,

can you go into anymore detail - you have not given us much to go on. It is not that I think you are trying to discredit the airline but am genuinely interested as to what the issue was.

Leeds App.

shaheen air
 

Quite frankly i was mortified to read these spurious comments which obviously came from people suffering from a lack of quid quo pro.

So more to do with ground handling and dispatch rather than the airline directly...?

Well the second flight is on the ground so lets see if it goes direct this time? Given the wind is not favouring 14 this time which offers far greater TODA than 32 it will be interesting. Believe it's full outbound again, can anyone confirm?

I wouldn't believe everything you hear from 'credible' sources because at least 2 of those comments I know are wrong

ground handling and dispatch don't set the bag and pax levels nor the aircraft's max takeoff weights but they do ensure the aircraft departs safely within these, thus if bags are offloaded it is not a ground handling problem but infact exactly what they are supposed to do.

Those rumours have become a little over embellished on their way to 2nd and 3rd hand ears. A DispExt said two of those "facts" were wrong, if not three. The aircraft operated well within its performance limits.

You're somewhat missing the point!

I never said it didn't - my point was the requirement to get it to that stage and more importantly, it's fuel contents!

Well, i'm just contributing to what is a Pro Pilots rumour website...(and my collegue who was at LBA at the time!)

The figures quoted for the Thursday flight are way over the top.

Very few problems this time. Check in was slick, the earlier 'operational issues' did not crop up again. Light load inbound but that is to be expected at this stage. Good load outbound.

i agree, a few issues need to ironed out, and some planning done for the summer when jet2 are likely to be using check-in hall B aswell. appears there has been good cooperation between the airport and servisiar too

Did it go direct this time? Given the wind was virtually calm and it was near full if not full, it will be a good indication for future long haul from LBAs modest runway.
Will be interesting in summer when the temperatures rise, perhahps Bridgepoint ought to think seriously about a runway extension rather than more shops in the terminal!

:ugh: