Shaheen Air
Shaheen Air International (Urdu: ????? ????) was a private Pakistani airline with its head office at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi and was founded by the Shah family. It remained Pakistan's second-largest airline until its liquidation in 2018 due to financial troubles. The airline owed Rs. 1.36 billion to the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan (CAA), as well as salaries to its employees. It provided passenger, cargo and charter services to major cities in Pakistan and the Middle East. It suspended all operations in October 2018.
Key facts
History
Shaheen Air International was founded in 1993 by Shaheen Foundation. Shaheen Air Cargo was a division of Shaheen Air International that was established in 1993, soon after the inception of the airline. Shaheen Air provided special services for sending small time-sensitive consignments. The airline's early operations were fraught with difficulties, exacerbated by a 50 percent fare discount for retired and serving military officers and high operating costs due to a limited number of aircraft on wet lease.
The airline faced financial challenges, losing Rs 60 million between December 1999 and May 2000, in addition to owing Rs 70 million to Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for services during the same period.
On 22 May 2004, the CAA grounded Shaheen Air as the airline owed it millions of rupees. Three days later the airline was cleared by the CAA to resume its domestic and international operations. The clearance letter was issued by CAA following receipt of a payment from Shaheen Air International towards the outstanding dues and funds. The same year, Shaheen Air International (SAI) became Shaheen Air and the airline introduced a new livery and corporate website.
Shaheen Air started its own maintenance repair organization (MRO) by the name of Shaheen Engineering and Aircraft Maintenance Services (SEAMS) to provide maintenance services to Shaheen Air as well as other regional and international airlines.
In its international operations, Shaheen Air operated between Pakistan and numerous destinations in the Middle East. Shaheen Air once started flight operations to Riyadh with three different routes from Pakistan.
Shaheen Air was Pakistan's second-largest airline next to the flag carrier, Pakistan International Airlines but due to the downturn in 2018, the airline declined. The airline was declared a defaulter by PCAA and FBR. In October 2018, SAI flight operations were completely suspended by the local regularity body PCAA and the airline declared a financial defaulter. Since November 2018, all SAI offices have closed.
Investor rumor and liquidation
Shaheen reported an unnamed investor from Saudi Arabia was to help the airline return to service from January 2019.
The owners of the airline later fled the country.
Even after repeated protests by the 5,000 employees, who were still owed months of wages, as of February 2019 no investigation into the matter had been initiated by any of the agencies, including the Federal Board of Revenue, Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and the Federal Ministry of Aviation.
Its airports
Its main hubs
Airports that list it on their own website
These airports include this airline in the carrier list on their official website.
Other airports in its network
Route network according to OpenFlights (open route database). It may not reflect recent schedule changes.
Data from Wikidata (CC0) · summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Cite
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This page was last updated on September 26, 2026
APA
Vuelopedia. (2026, September 26). Shaheen Air. Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/shaheen-air-international
MLA
“Shaheen Air.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 26 Sept. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/airline/shaheen-air-international. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
Chicago
Vuelopedia. “Shaheen Air.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified September 26, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/shaheen-air-international.
Harvard
Vuelopedia (2026) Shaheen Air. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/shaheen-air-international (Accessed: 17 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_airline_shaheen_air_international,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{Shaheen Air}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-09-26},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/shaheen-air-international},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/shaheen-air-international}},
urldate = {2026-10-17},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-17}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/shaheen-air-international |title=Shaheen Air |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-09-26 |access-date=2026-10-17 |language=en}}Types it operates · 17 aircraft · 4 models
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