KARACHI - Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Oriental Sky Aviation (OSA) have entered into a cargo charter agreement paving way for direct and dedicated cargo flights between Pakistan and China, said Abdullah Khan, the spokesperson of the national flag carrier.

As per arrangement, PIA, using its Airbus A320, will operate seven weekly fights to Urumqi (China), with four flights a week originating from Islamabad and three from Lahore respectively. 

According to the spokesperson it will be one of its kinds of operations as PIA had never before operated daily cargo flight on this sector, adding that since COVID-19 pandemic airlines across the globe had registered an unprecedented surge in the demand for air cargo and were fast converting passenger planes to cargo freighters.

Mentioning that PIA is also aggressively pursuing the approach, he said opportunities were being evaluated to operate dedicated cargo flights to different destinations including Central Asian routes and several more in China.

PIA was said to be already operating passenger and cargo charters to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan and Xi’an in China for different customers.