Airblue, Pakistan's fastest growing airline, launched direct flights to Sharjah and Abu Dhabi from December 15th, 2008.

The leading airline will be operating three weekly flights to both destinations, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi from Islamabad. The total number of flights between Pakistan and the Gulf will be increased to 76 flights per week.

The inaugural flight ceremony for both new flights was held at the Benazir Bhutto International airport, Islamabad. Senior officials from Airblue and CAA were present for the occasion. A cake cutting ceremony was done by Muhammad Ayaz Jadoon, APM Benazir Bhutto International Airport.

Three weekly flights to Sharjah from Islamabad will operate on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. The flight will depart Islamabad at 1400 hours and arrive in Sharjah at 1600 hours. Similarly, there weekly flights to Abu Dhabi from Islamabad will operate on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday departing from 2245 hours from Islamabad and arriving in Abu Dhabi at 0045 hours. Both flights will be operated by the next generation Airbus A321 aircraft with a full economy class configuration of 185 seats.

Airblue also plans to increase flight frequencies to Sharjah and Abu Dhabi to a daily operation by adding more flights in the near future. Future plans also include flights from Peshawar to both Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.

Airblue has acquired two new Airbus A319 aircrafts, with the addition of these two new aircrafts, the Airblue fleet now consists of three Airbus A321, three Airbus A320, and two Airbus A319. The airline prides itself in having the youngest fleet of aircrafts in Pakistan.

Airblue is the first private airline to have placed an order for 14 brand new A320 aircrafts in Pakistan. The scheduled delivery of these aircrafts starts from June 2009 at nearly three to six month interval. With the addition of these new aircrafts to its fleet, Airblue will expand operations to London, Birmingham, Scandinavia, the Far East, India, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.