Daily Times

Pakistan and Azerbaijan maintain friendly and warm relations, characterised by common views on major global and regional issues. Both states describe their diplomatic relations as friendly and fraternal. Therefore, it is not surprising that today Azerbaijan-Pakistan relations are developing in almost many areas-cooperation in the military sphere, and in the field of tourism, economy, etc. The recent visit of President of Pakistan Arif Alvi to Azerbaijan to participate in the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, emphasised, in a meeting with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the importance of developing bilateral relations in the areas of health and education and the oil sector. In my opinion, progress in these areas is expected.

At first glance, it would seem that it could be argued that bilateral relations are developing in an ascending line. But is this really so? Someone wondered why direct flights between the fraternal countries are still not established. Why are there no direct flights between Baku and Islamabad? Who do we not benefit from a direct flight between our countries?

Frankly, the last question interests me the least; however, I am sure that those who often travel to Azerbaijan and Pakistan are most concerned about one question. When, finally, direct flights between Baku and Islamabad will be opened? Unfortunately, giving a definite answer to this question is very difficult.

Let me conduct a small investigation on how to get from Azerbaijan to Pakistan by plane and how many hours to fly from Baku to Islamabad. Let’s choose the following dates for the trip: December 14 to December 20.

Pakistan has not yet established diplomatic relations with Armenia due to its occupation of Azerbaijani landsBaku-Islamabad: Why are there no direct flights?

I have not chosen these dates by chance; I am invited to participate in a forum that will be held in Islamabad in the third week of December. Now imagine-perhaps it’s hard to even imagine-a trip in one direction from Baku to Islamabad will take two days, two hours and thirty minutes, including three transfers, from December 14 to 16). The first transfer is Abu Dhabi (thirteen hours five minutes), the second is Dubai (thirteen hours twenty minutes), and the third is Jeddah (eleven hours fifty minutes).

But the flight time in the opposite direction from Islamabad to Baku will take one day, seventeen hours and five minutes, including three transfers from December 18 to 20. Thus, the flight time on the Baku-Islamabad route with six transfers will be three days, nineteen hours, thirty-five minutes, and ninety-one hours and thirty-five minutes.

Is there a solution to the problem? There is always a way out of the situation. So why do we not solve this problem amid the increasing number of Pakistani tourists coming to Azerbaijan?

In the first nine months of 2019, the number of tourists from Pakistan to Azerbaijan amounted to thirty-three thousand people. Compared to the same period last year, growth was 11.8 percent.

Why have AZAL, Azerbaijan Airlines and the State Tourism Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan not resolved this issue so far? Why was it impossible to try to open direct flights, at least in the spring-summer season, when we observe a large flow of tourists from Pakistan? So what are we waiting for?

Unfortunately, this issue has been discussed for many years but there is no progress. Today, Pakistan is a strategic partner for Azerbaijan, an ally, and a friendly and a fraternal country. Pakistan has not yet established diplomatic relations with Armenia due to its occupation of Azerbaijani lands. And here the question involuntarily arises: why should there not be direct flights between two fraternal countries, or why should our peoples fly to each other by six transfers? Why not reduce the number of transfers in the winter, and launch direct flights in the tourist season? I wonder how long it will take. Alas, finding answers to these questions is not easy. I hope and believe that by the beginning of the new spring-summer period this issue will be completely resolved.

The writer is the director of Eurasia-Azerbaijan, an international expert club, and editor-in-chief of the Azerbaijani news agency Vzglyad.az