Six private airlines have applied for the regular public transport (RPT) license to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and would most probably be beginning their operations from the first half of the present year.
The said six airlines are:
Liberty Air owned by Chaudhry Munir and Mian Amir
Go Green Airways owned by Elahi Group, Arshad Jalil and Danish Elahi
Air Sial by the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce
Askari Air Pakistan by the Army Welfare Trust (AWT)
Afeef Zara Airways owned by Rashid Siddiqui
United Airways Pakistan Limited by Adnan Tabbani
Out of these six airlines Air Sial, Go Green (which is the revival of Bhoja Airways under a new name) and Askari Air Pakistan would most probably be starting their flight operations during the first half of 2018 and would not be delaying the operations much later than October of the present year.
As per an aviation professional though the number of launched airlines is good, however, these airlines would not be able to meet the complete domestic traffic needs. Also, the introduction of these airlines would not even have a good impact in terms of creating jobs or of developing of infrastructure in the country as the airline owners would be getting the planes on dry lease and other services would also be outsourced. These airlines would neither be creating job opportunities for the concerned skilled individuals nor it would be upgrading the aviation industry.