New private carrier South Air begins domestic flights, targets underserved cities

By Staff Reporter

KARACHI: Pakistan’s newest private carrier, South Air, began scheduled domestic flights on Thursday, launching services from Karachi to Quetta and Islamabad via two cities that have had little or no direct air access in recent years, the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) said.

The airline’s first two commercial flights, Z8911 to Turbat and Z8942 to Bahawalpur, took off from Jinnah International Airport in Karachi on Thursday morning, marking the formal start of operations for a carrier that has spent the past several months conducting trial runs and building out its fleet.

South Air’s initial network links Karachi with Turbat, Quetta, Islamabad and Bahawalpur, with the Bahawalpur service restoring a route that Southern Punjab’s main city had gone without for three years. The airline opened bookings for the Karachi-Islamabad service in the days before launch, with one-way economy fares starting at 14,000 rupees. Demand for the inaugural flight was strong enough that its Economy Premium seats sold out ahead of departure.

The PAA said the new routes had strengthened the country’s domestic air network, adding that the services gave passengers wider travel options and better connectivity between cities that scheduled carriers have largely bypassed. South Air will run one flight a week on the Karachi-Quetta route via Turbat and three flights a week between Karachi and Islamabad via Bahawalpur to start, with plans to add routes to Peshawar, Rahim Yar Khan, Sukkur and Gwadar as the airline expands.

Pakistan International Airlines currently operates a single weekly flight between Karachi and Turbat, and no other airline flies directly between Karachi and Bahawalpur, underscoring the gap in service that South Air is seeking to fill.

South Air operates under a Tourism Promotion and Regional Integration (TPRI) licence issued by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, a category introduced under the National Aviation Policy of 2019 to draw private investment into regional routes that established carriers have not served. The carrier is flying ATR 72-600 turboprops, aircraft widely used on short- and medium-haul routes for their fuel efficiency and reliability.

Nishat Fatima, South Air’s chief executive, said on Wednesday that the airline planned to widen both its route network and its fleet so that more cities could gain access to modern air travel. “The establishment of South Air is not merely the addition of a new airline, but a national effort to further strengthen Pakistan’s air connectivity,” she said. “Our commitment is to provide every passenger with safe, punctual, and high-quality travel services, and to connect those regions with the national aviation network where air services have remained limited.”

Fatima, who according to the airline is the first woman in Pakistan to lead a commercial airline, has run South Air since it was formally launched at a ceremony in Multan in November, when Senate Chairman Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani presided over the event. The company is backed by SOS Group and has signed partnership agreements with Pakistan International Airlines for maintenance and overhaul work and with Pakistan State Oil for fuelling.

South Air ran its first trial flight, from Karachi to Gwadar, on May 26. A spokesperson for the airline said at the time that closer ties between Gwadar’s port and its international airport could help turn the coastal city into a commercial and transit hub by linking sea and air transport more directly.

The launch adds a fourth private operator to a domestic aviation market that has drawn renewed investor interest over the past year, as demand for air travel to Pakistan’s smaller cities has outpaced the routes served by the country’s established carriers.