Singapore Airlines to stop flights from Feb 17

Singapore Airlines to stop flights from Feb 17

KARACHI: Singapore Airlines has decided to roll back its Pakistan operation from next month, adding to woes of a flagging aviation industry, which has been battered by deteriorating security and economic slowdown.

The flag carrier of Singapore informed the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) last month of its decision to stop three weekly flights to Karachi and Lahore from Feb 17, a senior CAA official told The News.

“It is very sad that this has happened,” said Junaid Amin, the Director General of CAA. “Singapore Airlines says the flights were not making money but the real reason is the security threat.”

Pakistan has been wiped off from the radar of some of the leading foreign carriers since the country became a frontline state in the war on terror in 2002. British Airways stopped flights in 2008 just months after German airline Lufthansa curtailed flights to Karachi.

Bomb blasts and suicide attacks by extremist militants have wreaked havoc across the country, scaring away the small number of tourists and business travellers that come to Pakistan, industry people say.

PML MNA Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who helped start private airline Airblue, says Singapore Airlines is pulling out of a lot of other countries as well. “Their reason is purely commercial. Now all the international airlines are vying for best routes. They were just not making money from Pakistan.”

The structure of global aviation business has changed, he said, adding now the Gulf carriers will rule the skies on the back of sixth freedom rights, which allow an airline to take passengers from one country to another via its own.

Provisional figures of the CAA show that Pakistan’s total passenger traffic rose to 14.1 million in fiscal 2008-09 from 14m a year earlier. Most of the growth has come from international traffic as the number of domestic passengers dropped to 6.3m from 6.6m.

Industry people say that absence of any policy at the government level to promote the aviation industry has exacerbated the problems. Out of 42 airports, only 18 are functional and just nine are equipped to cater to international traffic.

Farooq Rehmatullah, the former DG CAA, says while negative travel advisories for Pakistan issued from time to time have hit international traffic, little has been done to foster growth locally.

“Country’s aviation will continue to suffer until there is a comprehensive policy which supports development of infrastructure like airports in rural areas,” he said, adding that till two years back only 8 percent of total population had stepped into an aircraft in their lifetime.

He said potential for growth in air travel resides in rural areas, which are disconnected from the urban centres. “Take Sahiwal for an example. It is reasonably a big city but people have to travel to Lahore via road before they can catch a flight to Dubai.”

Rise in prices of commodities in recent years has improved the purchasing power of the rural population deriving its income from farming, something that has up till now been ignored by policy makers, he said.

“We had proposed in the new aviation policy to allow private sector to develop airstrips in small cities. Feeder service through 15-seater aircraft could be started from such places that will take passengers to urban centres with international airports.”

The draft of that aviation policy is still pending approval of government, he regretted.