Rumours have surfaced recently about a new proposed airline “Air Kashmir” to start operations from the UK to Pakistan, it appears that there is currently no relevant information about the the airline, there does not appear to be a website although a domain name has been taken for air kashmir. There is currently no information about the registered owner of the domain name either, and no company information on the companies house register. It may be the case the company is formed outside of the UK and it may appear in the public domain sometime in the very near future!
Currently there is no direct flight operating from Glasgow and Emirates airlines is the only option for passengers traveling out of Glasgow although not direct Emirates does have two weekly flights with short connections from its hub in Dubai to Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar. The demand has never been so high for flights to Pakistan as PIA and Airblue are the only two airlines currently flying out from Manchester Airport and operating Direct flights to Islamabad and Lahore. The competition between the two main Pakistani based carriers have been to the benefit of their passengers with both PIA and Airblue offering significant savings on advance purchase fares with typical off peak fares starting form as low as £400 return including taxes for Adults. At busy periods both Air Blue & PIA are operating at maximum capacity therefore paving way for new carriers such as Air Kashmir may prove to be a greater possibility today than ever before.
From our sources (unofficial) it is understood that the new airline Air Kashmir will begin operations from Glasgow to Lahore and Islamabad via Manchester and Birmingham International airports, it is not clear at this stage the exact route the airline will take however suggestions are that the operations will start from either Glasgow or Manchester airport, the type of aircraft speculated is a Boeing 747 again no confirmation has been received by the management or owners of the airline or indeed if it holds an air operator certificate (AOC). This licence is mandatory for any carrier / airline wanting to start operating passenger flights.
In recent years there have been a number of failed operations from the UK to Pakistan, very recently UK International Airlines (UKIA) started operating from East Midlands Airport to Islamabad, this proved to be a very unsuccessful business venture with only a few flights actually making a round trip journey with most having been severely delayed, canceled, technical problems and there were unconfirmed reports it had landed at the wrong airport in Dubai or Sharjah via en-route to Islamabad Pakistan!, it was one of the biggest failures and poorly managed airlines in recent years to have surfaced from the UK with its head office location based on the 2nd floor of a furniture shop in Sheffield. The airline’s name UK International which quite clearly does not accurately represent the UK’s high standards lasted for about 8 weeks and caused significant inconvenience and financial losses to its passengers.