Keeping in view the demand for Umrah, the PIA has planned 11 extra Boeing 777 flights between November 21 and 30. These flights would be operated from Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Multan.
These flights are in addition to the four additional weekly flights to Jeddah that have already been added to PIA’s winter schedule which was adopted at the start of November, taking the total number of weekly Jeddah flights from 21 to 25, adding a weekly capacity of more than 1000 passengers. This is the result of an aggressive sales campaign launched by the Marketing department of PIA to proactively sell Umrah flights two months ago.
In a meeting held here on Monday, PIA CEO Bernd Hildenbrand said that Umrah operation was a top priority for the airline and all efforts were being made to facilitate the passengers.
The PIA has also obtained additional slots from Saudi Civil Aviation Authority (GACA), for the whole Umrah season, so that more capacity is available with PIA, in case the demand increases.