ISLAMABAD,:Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has resumed its direct flight operation for Mashhad, a holy city in Iran, after a gap of almost five years aimed at facilitating pilgrim and strengthening people-to-people contacts.
“First flight PK-119 carrying 165 passengers left Lahore for Mashhad [late Wednesday night],” PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez Khan said in a news release here on Thursday.
He said flights to Mashhad were the continuation of the previously launched flight operations to Najaf, Baghdad and Damascus.
“With the flight to Mashhad, the pilgrims will be able to reach all the holy places,” the spokesman said.
“Flights to Mashhad are being operated for the convenience of pilgrims,” PIA’s Chief Executive Officer Air Marshal Arshad Malik said, adding it was a long-standing demand of pilgrims.
He said the national flag carrier PIA had always been at the forefront to transport pilgrims to holy places.
With the resumption of this flight operation, he said, the devotees would have the facility of easy and cost-effective air travel.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), an Iranian news agency, reported that the development took place following the serious efforts of the Iranian Embassy in Islamabad to facilitate air travel between the two neighbouring countries and to boost the tourism industry.
Earlier this month Chief Executive of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Air Marshal Arshad Malik during a meeting with Ambassador of Iran to Pakistan Mohammad Ali Hosseini had announced that the PIA was going to start direct flights from Lahore to Mashhad.
PIA Spokesperson Abdullah Khan told IRNA that the PIA flight departed from Lahore to Mashhad on Wednesday at 23:19 from Allama Iqbal International Airport and was scheduled to arrive in Mashhad at 01:14 a.m. early Thursday. A cake was also cut on the occasion with the presence of Pakistani officials and staff of the Iranian Embassy.
He said the return flight from Mashhad to Lahore was scheduled to depart on December 30, Thursday, 02:30 a.m. Iran local time and land at Lahore airport at 06:30 a.m.
Ambassador Hosseini in a tweet had also revealed that Iran and Pakistan had agreed on increasing efforts to promote air cooperation between Iran and Pakistan. In this regard, PIA is going to begin direct flights from Karachi to Mashhad on January 1, 2022.
Currently, Iran Air operates one weekly flight from Tehran to Karachi and vice versa, and there are reports that Mahan Iran Airlines would resume flights from Tehran and Mashhad to Lahore.
Lahore is one of the important cities of Pakistan and is known as the ‘cultural heart’ of the country, so the resumption of these flights can be an effective step in the development of bilateral relations between Iran and Pakistan.
The launch of direct Karachi-Mashhad flights would increase the movement of different groups of the two neighbours to each other’s countries, including pilgrims to holy places in Iran, and exchange of trade and commerce delegations.
