AirBlue Summer 2025 Manchester Flights?

[planefan2003]

Apparrently AirBlue has applied for 3 weekly slots from Manchester to Islamabad via Trabzon anyone know anything about this?

[Amaad Lone]

I think you are the first one discover this mystery route.

But what a stupid idea.

[F1]

Heard from close sources they are also gearing up for Toronto flights with A330s . but again depends on ban issue.

[adamalikhan]

AirBlue operated this route previously for several years, using A321, A320 and even A319.

The stop in Trabzon was originally only a technical stop to refuel, but later AirBlue also sold tickets to and from Trabzon, from Islamabad and Manchester.

This continues until they offered the route direct using A340 and then stopping this route completely.

[AP-BMS]

I heard about this as well, from SPD Travels on Instagram, he was taking about the ACL Slot Requests for MAN 2025, seems weird tbh.

[Karachi Aviator]

If one has to take a flight with a stopover anyway, then what's the incentive to choose Airblue over ME carriers. Seems like a terrible idea if it's actually being considered. Why not use the neos which can fly nonstop between UK and Pakistan. This seems like a fake rumour as they already have an aircraft which can fly nonstop then why go for a refueling in Turkey.

[faisal-777]

If one has to take a flight with a stopover anyway, then what's the incentive to choose Airblue over ME carriers. Seems like a terrible idea if it's actually being considered. Why not use the neos which can fly nonstop between UK and Pakistan. This seems like a fake rumour as they already have an aircraft which can fly nonstop then why go for a refueling in Turkey.

Maybe lower price ?

[Amaad Lone]

I dont think an A321-neo can fly nonstop for 8 hours with a full load of passengers.

For that Airbus has the A321-LR (neo model). The Air Blue aircraft are not the LR version which basically has an extra fuel tank.

[Abbas Ali]

Manchester appearing in the list of airports on airblue website.



Abbas

[Karachi Aviator]

Islamabad-Manchester distance: 6,200KM
a321neo's range: 6,400+KM

The only challenge airblue faces is the configuration of it's neos (246Y) because of which it might be opting for a stopover otherwise a normal a321neo with a configuration of 168Y/12J (maybe not from Lahore) is capable of flying nonstop between Islamabad and Manchester. Payload restrictions might restrict airblue's ability to operate it's nonstop flights.

[Amaad Lone]

Islamabad-Manchester distance: 6,200KM
a321neo's range: 6,400+KM

The airliner is usually required to carry 1 or 1.5 hour of extra fuel in case of diversion.

the A321-Neo the LR version has a range of 7,400 km. That is done by giving an extra fuel tanks in the cargo hold.

If Airblue wants to fly to Manchester might be best to send the neos back to Airbus, have modified to LR version change the interior to 16 club and 170 economy and then bring them both back to service Manchester on a daily basis.

[Badar42]

It's not stupid or weird route at all , Airblue successfully operated this route for good few years. They had about hour or so refueling stop and used portable iPads for IFE.It was all till they acquired A340s and added Birmingham which Iiirc only lasted for couple of flights
It'll be nice to see air blue back in Manchester giving another direct option to Pakistan.

[AP-BMS]

On airblue's Flight Schedule page, looking for MAN to ISB, there are flights scheduled for Tuesday 24 December.

[adamalikhan]

On airblue's Flight Schedule page, looking for MAN to ISB, there are flights scheduled for Tuesday 24 December.

AirBlue will list destinations and flights in their schedule, for flights that go for maintenance etc. I would have thought that they could do this without making it visible to the public, however looks like its how their system works.

[danyal77W]

I wonder why airblue, in 21 years of its operation, has not been able to grow like any other airline in any other country would. I guess this is the slowest airline in terms of expanding its destinations. Its fleet looks okay - a decent one, I would say, to expand into markets other than UAE and Saudi Arabia.

After 21 years, it is still operating to markets in UAE and Saudia Arabia (just two international markets - that is a very stagnant growth).

In addition, although they have 12 aircrafts, each aircraft usually just operates 2 or max 4 flights a day, this is an under utilization of aircrafts.

In the past, they have operated to UK, Oman, and Turkey, but the flights were short-lived. I wonder why they are not able to sustain into new markets for a long period of time. Do they not do market demand research rigorously before making decisions to launch new decisions? Are they even interested in the world beyond Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

For domestic market, they did Peshawar, Quetta, and Multan from Karachi, but these flights also lasted a few months. What is the problem? I think that demand between the two cities should not be a problem as the cities have huge populations, and these cities are also not very well linked with highways.