Foreign airline's flight welcomed with water cannon salute at Karachi airport

KARACHI: A foreign airline Fly Baghdad has operated its first flight in Pakistan and transported 165 passengers from Iraq’s Najaf city to Karachi, ARY News reported on Friday.

Upon the arrival of the Fly Baghdad aircraft, the first flight ‘uF331’ to Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport was welcomed with a water cannon salute.

Fly Baghdad will operate four flights in a week to Pakistan, in the next phase, the foreign airline will unveil its schedule for flights from Najaf to Lahore.

On July 6, Fly Baghdad airline had announced it shall begin its Baghdad- to Karachi and -Lahore flight operations by mid-July marking its anniversary.

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The airline management had announced the operations will commence July 16 and there will be four weekly flights from Pakistan to Iraq. The first phase of this operation will see Karachi to Najaf flights taking off, followed by Lahore to Najaf.

Fly Baghdad management had also begun preparations for the operations after approval from the local Civil Aviation Authority.

Earlier in the month, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had issued a licence to a newly launched private airline to operate flights in Pakistan in line with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan to promote tourism and regional connectivity.

The PCAA had approved the issuance of a Tourism Promotion & Regional Integration (TPRI) licence to the country’s private airline named Alvir Airways (Pvt) Ltd for a period of five years under National Aviation Policy 2019.