Free Blog

Since we are offered another free blog I decided to write on what I am currently busy doing - finding tickets for visiting Pakistan this summer! This summer my family has decided to visit our family in Pakistan. Everything has been planned, what gifts to take, what to do there, locations to visit, which restaurants to go etc. But the most important thing that stays undecided is the tickets! We are planning to fly during summer, in June-July. Because of the summer season the tickets are ridiculously high. As we do our research and ask all the airlines we don’t find anything below $2,000 per person. It is total of 5 of us in my family and that means spending about $10,000 just in tickets. I have observed this before that just because of the tickets people changes their plans of visiting their home countries. Because of the high prices just for the tickets we all began to do our research for choosing the dates for travel and the airline.

My family usually doesn’t fly all together because we all like to go different places. My mom and my younger sister prefer to go back to our home country during summer. While my youngest sister and I like to go places within States or Canada. Because my mom has always flown to Pakistan in summer, she has always used Emirates Airlines. Emirates Airline is ranked five stars in service, experience, and for comfort. Emirates Airline is not a cheap airline but because it’s just two of the family members traveling, we don’t freak out about the prices as we are now. Looking from the marketing perspective Emirates Airlines took over what used to be ranked #1 choice of Pakistani travelers, PIA (Pakistan International Airlines).

The reason why people chose PIA over any other airline was because it used to offer a direct flight only from New York. Since the growing population of Pakistani’s are all over the States, PIA started their flights from other destination as well. PIA used to offer only one stop, in London, in between Houston to Karachi, Pakistan in comparison to other airlines which offered multiple stops in several countries. The travel distance is already too much. It takes about 24 hours from Houston to Karachi, Pakistan and the only thing PIA offered was the direct flight to save some time. I think they were marketing their service by saying we provide the “Pakistani feeling” but that doesn’t mean you skip meals and provide horrible service. The way Emirates Airline took over was by providing something PIA lacked the most - Customer Service. I always read reviews for PIA because for some reason I wanted to work for an airline. My aunt used to work for PIA and so I always had something to complain to her about the airline.

From the reviews, I read that people were happy they are saving some time by having a direct flight but are not appreciating the service offered. My personal experience with PIA was horrible. They skip meals, they are not available when you call them for help, and they are out of almost everything you ask for. Emirates Airline not only offers a great service, but it also offers a direct flight from Houston to Dubai and then Dubai to Pakistan all in less than 24 hours. (from my family member’s experience) Because of their great services they provide to their travelers, Emirates Airlines took over what Pakistani’s or more like what my family prefers. My mom and my sister just love the experience of flying in Emirates. They said the appearance of the plane is neat and clean. There is always help available from flight attendants. They provide you with meals according to your choice and according to where you’re going. Not only that, once you fly with them they subscribe you for their newsletter. They send you little things such as stickers, hand bands, and they also give mileage points. Once you reach up to that certain mileage points, you can redeem it for a free ticket. With all these great services provided to us, Emirates became our number one choice.

Now going back to the issue of tickets and pricing, like I said Emirates is not cheap! The tickets they are offering are $2,000 per person. As we were worrying about the tickets prices because it’s five of us traveling this time, we heard about this new airline in competition to Emirates, Qatar Airways. It was good news for us because they are offering alot lower prices than what Emirates is offering. Doing the research on Qatar Airways we found out they are also good in services. Their planes are new, clean, and flight attendants are very friendly. Because of this, my mom and sister have already bought tickets with Qatar Airways. And as I suspected the Qatar Airways did cause Emirates to lower their prices!

It’s really interesting to see how industries of any kind can be harmed by competitors and how the competitors can also cause others to change their decision. I believe it’s really important for an airline in their industry to be updated with what’s going on and find strategies to either keep themselves in the good position or make it better. With Emirates Airlines, I think it’s going to be challenging for Qatar Airways to compete with them. Since Emirates is already well known and have a strong image in peoples mind, it will take time for Qatar Airways to compete with Emirates. Even though my mom and sister have chosen Qatar Airways for the first time, they might not choose it for future. Since it is new to the US market at this point, we don’t have many reviews to read and decide. And like I mentioned earlier Emirates Airlines is lowering their price and so I will choose to fly Emirates. I have never flown in this airline and from what I have heard about their services, I look forward to have an experience.