United to fly to Karachi, Medina

Ziaur Rahman | Published: July 09, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

United Airways (BD) Limited, one of country's leading private airlines, is set to spread its wings wider with new services on Dhaka-Karachi and Dhaka-Medina routes from September.
The airline has already received permission from the authorities concerned of respective countries, including Karachi and Jeddah Civil Aviation authorities. It is now taking preparation to fly to the new destinations, competent sources said.
In the meantime, the United Air has posted its GS (general sales) agent at Karachi. "If everything goes accordingly, we hope to open the new routes by September this year," said Capt. Tasbirul Ahmed Choudhury, Chairman and Managing Director of the private aviation company.
Initially, the airline will start operation on the Dhaka-Karachi route with a target to extend the service up to the Middle East to carry the expatriate Bangladeshis leaving in the region.
It has the permission to get and offload passengers at Karachi Airport for onward journey. "The Dhaka-Karachi route will be extended gradually up to Middle-Eastern cities like Muscat, Doha and Abu Dhabi," he added.
Passengers willing to travel directly to Saudi Arabia can also perform Umrah as the airlines will have stopover at Jeddah. According to sources, about two million Bangladeshis are living in Saudi Arabia. And many of them use the airline to perform Umrah on their way home.
The airline plans to operate 3 flights a week to the destinations, initially, with Airbus-310 and MD-83 on Dhaka-Karachi and Dhaka-Medina routes respectively. The fare on the new routes, according to airline sources, will be cheaper than that of other airlines.
The United also plans to resume its flight operations on Dhaka-Bangkok and Dhaka-Singapore routes soon. Flights on these routes were closed early this year.
The political turmoil in Bangkok forced the suspension. The operation will resume as soon as the political situation becomes stable.
The Dhaka-S'pore flight, which was closed due to the dwindling flow of passengers, is also expected to resume operation by next August.
"We are also planning to spread our wings to other Gulf destinations, including Riyadh, Dammam, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah also. Gulf is the most important market for Bangladeshi airlines as one in two people who fly abroad goes to the six Gulf countries which employ more than 60 percent of the country's over 7 million migrant workers," said the chairman.
It also plans to operate Yangon flights.
The airline, the first-ever public limited company in the aviation sector of Bangladesh, is also planning to expand its fleet for smooth functioning of flight operations by bringing in four more airbus-320s within this year. The aircraft will be brought with financial assistance from banks and suppliers' credit facilities from abroad.
At present the airline is operating more international routes from Dhaka to Jeddah, Dubai, Muscat, Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu and Kolkata and also from Chittagong to Muscat and Kolkata.
It is operating domestic flights from Dhaka to Chittagong, Sylhet, Jessore, Cox's Bazar, Saidpur, Rajshahi and Barisal.
Now the airline runs a fleet of 11 aircraft, including one Dash-8-100, three ATR-72s, five MD-83s and Two Airbus-310s.
The United Airlines is operating flights to all major domestic destinations from Dhaka, like Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Sylhet, Jessore, Rajshahi, Saidpur, Barisal and Ishwardi.