Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) chairman Muhammad Ali Gardezi said on Saturday that the national flag-carrier would induct five aircraft in its fleet.
He was speaking to journalists at the airline’s office. Gardezi said the board of directors had approved the decision. He said PIA was expected to reduce losses by 44 per cent after inducting the ATR 72-500s. Gardezi said the aircraft would arrive in December. He said this would bring the total number of ATRs in the fleet to 11. They can seat 62-66 each passengers and will be operated on domestic routes.
Gardezi said the management was also planning to induct 10 Airbus A320 aircraft on a six-year dry lease. He said these would join the fleet in 2015. Gardezi said the airline would be operating 11 ATRs, 13 Airbus A320s, nine Boeing 777s and five Airbus A310 aircraft in 2015. He said the A310s would be replaced with state-of-the-art Airbus A330 aircraft if circumstances permitted.
Gardezi said the management had been striving to improve the airline’s financial performance. He said they had managed to reduce losses by Rs10 billion. Gardezi said the airline had incurred a loss of Rs8 billion in the first six months of the current fiscal year.
He said this year the flag-carrier had made an operating profit of Rs338 million during the same time period.
Gardezi said the management had taken several initiatives to cut costs. He said the airline had stopped flying to Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Gardezi said PIA had been incurring losses of Rs461 million on these routes. He said the airline had abolished 200 foreign posts. Gardezi said the flag-carrier would continue reducing jobs at foreign destinations with low traffic.
Gardezi said PIA had successfully concluded its pre-Hajj operation. He said the airline’s post-Hajj operation was now underway. He said the flag-carrier had opened an aeronautical engineering centre of international standard in Lahore.
Gardezi said a similar facility would be opened in November in Rawalpindi. He said similar facilities would also be opened in Peshawar and Quetta.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 12th, 2014.
COMMENTS (7)
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Sounds more like a memo than article to me. Anyways, PIA headoffice is in Karachi along with all the repair centers and they are opening engineering unit in lahore instead of karachi. Hint hint nepotism
PIA cannot progress unless unqualified and incompetent POLITICAL APPOINTEES are fired.
More money will be lost to kickbacks and corruption and PIA will only get worse........the PML-N stands discredited for massive corruption so why don't they do the right thing and privatise PIA OR simply shut it down........that way the PML-N image will improve and the exchequer will benefit.
bad reporting style.
All in all a story of continuing painful decline from a major international carrier to a largely domestic carrier. Once PIA stops flying to European destinations it is unlikely to ever get back its legacy landing and take of slots in those same slot restricted airports.
what a waste of money. should be privatized.
Why doesn't PIA cut cost like unnecessary staff, remove luxury food service on domestic legs. Create an efficient service...look at Air New Zealand how they have transformed themselves. I would love to help PIA become a top Airline again.