Business community of Faisalabad has taken a bold decision to develop a state of the art and fully dedicated civilian airport on the pattern of Sialkot model, said Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry's (FCCI) president Shabbir Hussain Chawla. During his visit to the Secretariat of Sialkot International Airport Ltd (SIAL), he discussed the successful model of Sialkot Airport which was developed by the business community of that city.
He mentioned that Faisalabad is a major exporting city of the country and due to its direct linkages with the buyers of different countries, the air passenger load from this city has increased manifold. He stated that just few years ago there were only few domestic flights from this third biggest city of the country. "The local importers and exporters have to regularly travel to international destinations but they were forced to take flights from other cities which was a sheer wastage of their precious time and money", he added.
He said Mian Javaid Iqbal former FCCI president started efforts from the platform of FCCI and during the tenure of former president Engineer Rizwan Ashraf first direct international flight landed at Faisalabad International Airport in 2014. "This was the first drop of rain and later many more international Airlines diverted their flights to Faisalabad and at the moment seven Airlines are operating total 104 flights per week from Faisalabad", he added.
He said Faisalabad has huge passenger load of five lakh per annum which is expected to jump to eight lakh during next few years. He further told that Faisalabad has the biggest industrial Estate of M3. It is sprawling over 4,500 acres of land and under CPEC this industrial zone will offer multiple facilities of tax holiday to the new investors", he said and added that dozens of potential investors are planning to setup their manufacturing units in this industrial state.
He told that Faisalabad city is flanked by two motorways M3, M4 and Lahore-Karachi motorway which will also connect Faisalabad with the Karachi and Gwadar Sea Ports. Similarly it will also connect Faisalabad with China and other land locked Central Asian States.
He also appreciated the vision of Mian Muhammad Idrees former president FPCCI who visualized the importance of a new Airport and directed to prepare a comprehensive feasibility report of new Airport purely in private sector.
Continuing, he told that the government has upgraded the existing Airport but it will be insufficient to handle the heavy traffic load in the coming years. He told that in these circumstances the business community has decided to initiate work on this major infrastructure development project which will also play a catalytic role for the growth of Airline industry in this region.