Mian Muhammad Soomro, Federal Minister for Aviation and Privatization has announced that Hajj pilgrims from Islamabad would get their immigration done at Islamabad International Airport (IIA) and travel to Saudia Arabia as domestic passengers. Speaking at a media briefing held during his visit to Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) headquarters here, Soomro said that the incumbent government has taken up this immigration issue with Saudi government under its road to Makkah project.
"Now, the Saudi government has initially allowed immigration of Hajj pilgrims at IIA and will deal them as domestic passengers on their arrival at Saudi Arabia," he said and added that this facility, which would later be extended to all major airports of the country, would save 5 to 6 hours of Hajj pilgrims.
He said that the Saudi government would initially allow this facility only on arrival and talks to extend it to departure were in progress. "After receiving immense number of queries for chartered flights to Northern areas, the government has planned to restore flight operations at Saidu Shareef, Rawalkot & Parachinar airports in order to promote tourism in the country.
Moreover, Soomro said that the revival plan for Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had been chalked out and claimed that national flag carrier would turn into profitable entity in next three years. He said that PIA would induct new aircraft in the fleet before Hajj operations and the Hajj quota of Shaheen Airlines would be shared by PIA, Air Blue and Saudi airlines.
The federal minister further said that a delegation of Turkey based company, which was handling operations at Heathrow and other airports, showed interest to provide services in Pakistan and for the purpose, the talks with other companies were also in progress. He said that government would appoint competent person on the slot of DG PCAA and the advertisement in this regard would be published shortly.
Commenting on New Aviation Policy (NAP) 2019, he said that several unprecedented initiatives-rationalization of all passengers' related PCAA charges, aeronautical charges on domestic operations and others have been included in the policy and the government would also review bilateral frequency agreements with different airlines. Director planning and development Nadir and Sumair Saeed Director Engineering services also attended the presser.