Comment by Riaz Haq on December 5, 2025 at 8:45pm

Saad @AirlinePilotMax


Why Pakistan’s next aviation boom won’t start in Karachi or Lahore… it will start with 70–90 seat regional jets.

Everyone talks about CPEC, tourism potential, and Gwadar — but ask any traveler from Gilgit, Skardu, Chitral, or even Multan how many flights they actually get per week. The bottleneck isn’t demand. It’s connectivity.

Here’s the quiet truth: Pakistan’s geography and demographics are textbook-perfect for modern regional jets like EmbraerE-Jets .

Why they can become the real backbone of feeder routes:

1. Runway reality
Most northern and secondary airports (Skardu 11,000 ft but high elevation, Chitral, Gilgit, Muzaffarabad, DG Khan, etc.) can’t reliably take 737s/A320s year-round, especially in summer. A 76-seat E175 performs where the big narrowbodies struggle.

2. Frequency > Capacity
Gilgit in peak season sells out 2–3 daily 50-seaters in minutes. One 180-seat A320 a day doesn’t solve the problem — four 78-seat flights do. Higher frequency unlocks tourism and same-day business travel.

3. Unit cost revolution
New-generation regional jets (E2, A220) now have seat costs within 5–10 % of an A320 on stages <500 nm, but with half the trip cost. Perfect for thin routes that can’t fill 180 seats yet.

4. Domestic feed = International yield
Every passenger from Skardu, Chitral or Sukkur who connects in Islamabad or Lahore is pure marginal revenue for PK, EK, QR, TK widebody flights. Feed the hubs, feed the bottom line.

5. Proven model next door
India went from 20 regional jets in 2015 to over 120 today (mostly under UDAN). Result? New stations, lower fares, and routes that eventually graduated to A320s when traffic matured. Pakistan can copy-paste the playbook.

The fleet Pakistan truly needs in the next 5–7 years isn’t 30 more A320s… it’s 30–40 modern regional jets, flown aggressively on 40–50 underserved routes.

When a family in Hunza can fly to Karachi same-day return for a medical appointment, or a textile buyer from Faisalabad can visit three cities in one day — that’s when aviation becomes an economic accelerator, not just transport.

https://x.com/airlinepilotmax/status/1996101019173093827?s=61&t...

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 29, 2025 at 9:44am

India’s aviation meltdown exposes long-brewing pilot fatigue crisis
Aviation experts and pilot groups say IndiGo’s unprecedented scheduling crisis this month was due in part to an industry failure to address pilot fatigue.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/12/27/india-indigo-aviati...


NEW DELHI — Every couple of weeks, the Indian pilot is required to make three short-haul night flights over two consecutive nights. As she tries to rest up before her next daytime flight, the 40-year-old says she often lies awake worrying about her health.


“I don’t think I will live long if I continue flying,” said the Delhi-based pilot for IndiGo, India’s largest airline. “My body, my brain — everything has just shut down. This is zombie work.”
She was hopeful when she learned the country’s aviation regulator was instituting new rules to combat pilot fatigue — eliminating the most punishing flight patterns, limiting night landings and mandating longer rest periods. But when the rules finally came into force in November, chaos followed.


It coincided with an expansion of flight schedules, in part to accommodate India’s largest-ever wedding season, and soon cancellations and delays were piling up. By early December, IndiGo faced a snowballing disaster, described by pilots and aviation experts as a crisis unique in Indian aviation history. Almost 1 million bookings were affected between Nov. 21 and Dec. 7, the Civil Aviation Ministry told local media.



During the worst week, Indigo said it canceled about 4,500 flights, including almost all of those in and out of the capital of New Delhi on Dec. 5. Across the country, airport departure boards glowed red. Passengers were left with little information. Bags piled up and went missing.

“No airline, however large, will be permitted to cause such hardship to passengers,” Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu told Parliament on Dec. 9. But the ministry and its main regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), temporarily exempted IndiGo from the new rules governing flight schedules to help stabilize the situation. The 40-year-old pilot and her colleagues felt like they were back where they began.

——-

An aviation boom in a shrinking field
Two decades ago, India had a plethora of domestic carriers. IndiGo, known for its lean staffing, punctual takeoffs and fast turnarounds, steadily rose to dominance, powering the world’s fastest-growing aviation industry.
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But that growth was accompanied by unprecedented consolidation. Since the early 2000s, at least three major Indian airlines have folded and at least five have been acquired or merged, leaving two major domestic players: IndiGo and Air India.
IndiGo has continued to outpace its older, more established rival, amassing more than 60 percent of the domestic market and more than $800 million in profits, according to the company’s latest annual report. For those looking to fly out of smaller airports or to less-frequented cities, IndiGo is often the only available option.
Underlying IndiGo’s ascent, pilots say, was a culture of intense pressure around work schedules that reshaped industry norms, particularly after the coronavirus pandemic. “I have often gone to the brink before I get rest,” the senior pilot told The Post.
Amit Singh, who has more than three decades of experience in the cockpit, said pilot rest standards in the United States and Europe are designed to protect sleep quality through circadian modeling and fatigue research, while India’s approach has largely been based on counting hours. U.S. airlines are required to guarantee pilots eight hours of uninterrupted sleep opportunity and adhere to cumulative limits that account for fatigue over time, he said.

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