Press Release: Airblue Expands Fleet

January 19, 2006: Airblue, Pakistan's fastest-growing domestic airline, has acquired two more A321 Aircraft on dry lease which will be inducted in its fleet next week to consolidate its domestic network. This will increase the fleet size of airblue to 6 aircraft and will increase the daily operation to 30 flights daily.

Airblue, Pakistan's next generation airline, has been in operation for 18 months and has transported more than 900,000 passengers throughout its network in the short span.

The two new Aircraft are the latest fly-by-wire technology Airbus A321s which is similar to the airblue current fleet -- only with a longer fuselage providing for additional passenger and cargo capacity to meet the heavy demand.

The induction of more aircraft and network expansion will provide for increased job opportunities as airblue's business model looks at Pakistan-registered aircraft with Pakistani cockpit and cabin crew, along with all local engineering and support manpower expertise.

Each Aircraft will have a dual configuration of 24 business class and 158 economy class seats to cater for more aggressive marketing and will provide additional capacity on sectors of greater demand such as Karachi-Islamabad and Karachi Lahore to meet passenger needs.

With the induction of these two new Aircraft, Airblue now have a fleet of 6 Aircraft -- one of the newly acquired Aircraft will be positioned in Dubai and will replace the wet lease Aircraft which Airblue was operating from Dubai.

The second Aircraft will be positioned in Karachi and will be utilized in its consolidating the domestic flight schedule, increasing the capacity to Lahore, Peshawar and Dubai, and also introducing a new destination --- Faisalabad.

The first of the two A321 is expected to land in Islamabad tonight and will be positioned in Karachi. The second aircraft will arrive in Pakistan next week and inducted into operation immediately.