Can Pakistan's new budget airline give domestic travel a lift?

Qudrat Baloch, a businessman in Quetta, in southwestern Pakistan, travels frequently to Karachi, the country's largest city and commercial hub, for business. "I had stopped traveling by air from Quetta to Karachi because return airfares were very expensive," Baloch told Nikkei. He started driving instead, but the arrival of a budget carrier in Pakistan's airline market is poised to get travelers like him back in the air. Baloch, for his part, said Fly Jinnah's lower fares have already convinced him to resume flying to Karachi. Fly Jinnah started operations on Oct. 31 with a fleet of three Airbus A320 aircraft. The airline, a joint venture between Lakson Group of Pakistan and Air Arabia Group of the United Arab Emirates, entered the market with significantly lower airfares than those of four other airlines operating domestic flights in Pakistan. The domestic air market in Pakistan is not very large. A little over 6m people -- less than 3% of the population -- took a domestic flight in fiscal 2018-19, according to the latest data available from the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan. Experts say high airfares have prevented demand for air travel from taking off. Afsar Malik, an airline economics expert, believes domestic fares in Pakistan are overpriced by about 50%. "Airlines in Pakistan make money by reducing competition and capacity. Fly Jinnah has intensified competition and increased capacity. Fares have, therefore, dropped by about 30%, and may drop further, by another 20%, within a couple of months," he added.<br/>