{"id":1935,"date":"2019-01-15T17:38:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T17:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/?p=1935"},"modified":"2019-01-15T17:38:39","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T17:38:39","slug":"5-year-plan-in-3-months-to-turn-p-i-a-fortunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/5-year-plan-in-3-months-to-turn-p-i-a-fortunes\/","title":{"rendered":"5 YEAR PLAN IN 3 MONTHS TO TURN P.I.A FORTUNES"},"content":{"rendered":"

Islamabad, Jan 15 (APP): The management of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will develop a comprehensive five-year strategic business plan to turn the national flag carrier into a profitable entity and revive its past glory, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) PIA, Air Marshal Arshad Mehmood Malik said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDue to mismanagement and corruption PIA had become a liability. Prime Minister Imran Khan tasked us to revive the PIA as a profitable enterprise.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSince taking the responsibility in October, last year we have taken some short-term measures to ensure its smooth functioning and now we are going to give a five-year long term plan in a three-month period,\u201d he told a news conference here at the Press Information Department (PID).<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Minister for Aviation Muhammad Mian Soomro, Special Assistant to PM on Media Affairs Iftikhar Durrani and Secretary Aviation Division Shahrukh Nusrat were also present at the presser.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Arshad said that the five-year plan would undertake measures for cost saving, revenue generation, improvement and expansion of flight operations. \u201cFinancial restructuring through government support will also be part of the plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He said that revival of the airlines\u2019 past glory was a daunting task but he had full backing of the Minister for Aviation to turns its fortunes. He said after assuming the charge he found that PIA was a white elephant turned black hole due to several issues such as meddling of PIA Union in administrative affairs, corruption, non professional attitude and over-staffing. \u201cBut I also found that PIA pilots, engineers and technicians were the best in the industry and they needed only ownership to harmonize their energies,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
Federal Minister for Privitization and Aviation Muhammad Mian Soomro along with Special Advisor to PM Mr Iftikhar Durrani, Secretary Aviation and Chairman PIA addressing a Press Conference in Islamabad on January 15, 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Talking about the cost saving operations undertaken by the new management, he said a strategy was evolved to stop bleeding and cut costs of the national airlines.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He said seven loss making routes including Lahore-Delhi-Lahore, Karachi-Dhaka-Karachi, Karachi-Muscat-Karachi, Karachi-Kuala Lumpur-Karachi, Karachi-Bangkok-Karachi, Pakistan-Paris-Barcelona and Karachi-NJF-Karachi had been suspended.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFlights to these routes were causing a loss of 500 million rupees every month,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He said flight on Islamabad-Beijing-Tokyo-Beijing-Islamabad route was causing a loss of 300 million rupees every month as PIA was allowed to pick only 80 passengers from Tokyo on a 350-seat aircraft.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He said rationalization, closure and rerouting of flights was yielding fruits as 200 million rupees would be saved per month.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He said seven profit making routes had been introduced where seat factor was around 95% as compared to the closed routes where seat factor was only 54%.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The night landing facility at Peshawar Airport is being restored and soon passengers, including expats will directly land there, he added.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The CEO said that PIA was operating a fleet of 32 aircraft out of which six were grounded rather abandoned.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The overhauling of these aircraft is being done by our engineers and technicians, he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He said around 200 hundred ghost employees had been removed while action had also been taken against the fake degree-holders as per Supreme Court directions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Describing the non-professional attitude of the previous PIA management, he said that there was extreme lack of interest to run the national airline. Even engines of some airplanes had been removed, while wings and other parts also disappeared, he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He said the ground support equipment and vehicles, which were getting expired, were being refurbished.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Special Assistant to PM on Media Iftikhar Durrani said as many as 550 international flights were operating per week under the open skies policy in 2008, but unfortunately the number gradually declined to 376 flights during the next 10 years in tenures of Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ironically, he said, the PIA started facing crisis with the \u2018taking-off \u2018of the democracy under the Charter of Democracy, adding \u201cExactly, it is a classic case study of mis-governance from 2008-17.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Islamabad, Jan 15 (APP): The management of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will develop a comprehensive five-year strategic business plan to turn the national flag carrier into a profitable entity and revive its past glory, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) PIA, Air Marshal Arshad Mehmood Malik said on Tuesday. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDue to mismanagement and corruption PIA had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,24,63],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1939,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions\/1939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}