FAISALABAD: According to Airport Manager Muhammad Anwar Zia, a new runway would be ready at Faisalabad International Airport by October of this year, allowing Boeing 777 aircraft to land.
This was stated by airport manager Muhammad Anwar Zia at a meeting with FCCI officials on Thursday.
Speaking to the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) in this area on Thursday, he noted that the air cargo complex was also under development and that it was anticipated that 75 percent of the work would be finished before the runway was operational.
102 domestic and international flights were smoothly operating out of the Faisalabad airport, according to Zia, who also expressed pleasure with the amount of available passenger load and air cargo.
“It is now earning a profit of Rs2 billion,” he said and added that presently 102 domestic and international flights are operating from this airport facility in a month.
He said that only small planes could land on the old runway, prompting authorities to construct a new runway.
In light of the expected increase in passengers and air cargo from the city and its catchment regions, he said that the previous runway’s limited capacity for small planes encouraged officials to create a new runway for wide-bodied aircraft.
He continued by saying that the air cargo complex’s development was started in response to a request from the FCCI and will be finished this year.
He said a study was conducted to evaluate the passenger load before contacting international airlines. At that time the available passenger load was only 70,000 which jumped to 500,000 and is now expected to cross the mark of 800,000 within the next few years.
He said that in a similar pattern, we must calculate the available tonnage of air cargo so that the airlines could be convinced to launch a dedicated air cargo service from this port.
