Report On Shaheen Air
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The airline was established and started operations in December 1993. It was formed as a project of the Shaheen Foundation, Pakistan Air Force. In October 1994 it was designated as the second national carrier of Pakistan and in February 1995 began international operations, with a scheduled service between Peshawar and Dubai. When the airline started it operated a fleet of Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft on most of its domestic flights. Shaheen Air International (SAI) was given the status of being the “second national airline of Pakistan” during the first couple of years of operation, however now as more airlines have entered the market this status is no longer recognised.
In recent years in July 2004, the airline management was changed due to its fall in productivity and un-successfulness of its previous approach, the airline was overtaken by TAWA International Inc. of Canada. The new chairman of Shaheen Air, Khalid M Sehbai has made a huge Foreign Direct Investment in Shaheen Air with the sole objective to make the airline back to its successful past.
During November 2004, the airline inducted its first Boeing 737-200 Advanced for its main route of Karachi-Lahore-Karachi, that arrived at Jinnah International Airport, Karachi and phasing out of its Soviet aircraft to improve services and efficiency as oil prices were on the rise.
During 2005, the cargo division of the airline also grew when it signed an accord with the Pakistan Post and British Airways Cargo to facilitate exporters by airlifting 150 tonnes of export cargo. For this purpose, Shaheen Air Cargos division had also acquired IL-76 aircraft. The aircraft will be used on Dubai – Karachi routes. The initial two flights on January 3 and 5 carried about 100 metric tonnes export cargo that was delivered at Dubai for onward transportation to Europe and USA by British Airways flights.
In 2006, Shaheen Air International (SAI) became Shaheen Air and the airline introduced a new livery and website to become inline with technological advances that were taking place in the industry. The airline also introduced flights to Quetta – Karachi. The Governor of Balochistan said that the improvement of air links was also discussed in the ongoing talks between Pakistan and Iran and he has offered the management of Shaheen Air to operate Quetta – Zahidan sector flights. He said that initially SAI is operating with eight flight schedules on Karachi-Quetta route and Quetta – Lahore route. He announced that SAI would also operate flight between Islamabad and Quetta later on.
On May 22, 2006 the Civil Aviation Authority stopped all flights of Shaheen Air as it owed millions of rupees to the CAA. The management of the airline were