Efforts to save failing flights between Tajikistan and Pakistan are not hitting the financial mark, according to a report published in an Islamabad-based online newspaper, even though fare for a two-way Lahore-Dushanbe flight was increased from $370 to $470 to avoid financial death of this unpopular route.
Air flight operations between Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and Lahore, Pakistan, may be terminated soon as the operating company is facing financial loses.
According to DND news agency, the flight operating company in Lahore said that flight operations from 2 flights a week to one flight on every Monday would continue due to “technical reasons” However, travel and tourism experts in the industry believe that the reason behind squeezing flight operations is almost of “no interest” to people of both the countries in this route.
“There is no load on this route, and this flight is not viable financially, and service can be suspended in [the] near future if [the] load situation remains [the] same as it is today,” claim travel agents in Lahore.
A Dushanbe-based private company, Somon Air, initiated a flight just a week before a visit by Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif to Dushanbe to attend a groundbreaking ceremony of the power project, CASA1000.
The inauguration of a Samon Air flight was very much promoted in Pakistani as well as in Tajik media stating this development as “a new chapter of Pak-Tajik diplomatic relations. Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mian Nawaz Sharif, mentioned a Lahore-Dushanbe flight in his speech at the CASA1000 ceremony as a great achievement of his diplomatic policy.
“If this flight suspends in [the] future, it will a jolt to Pak-Tajik relations because [the] CASA1000 project is already in [the] doldrums, and suspension of this flight would add [a] more adverse impact of Pak-Tajik relations, believe diplomatic circles in Islamabad.”
