Islamabad - 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, said PIA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Air Marshal Arshad Mehmood Malik here yesterday.
The PIA CEO was addressing a joint press conference along with Minister for Aviation and Privatisation Muhammadmian Soomro and Special Assistant to PM on Media Iftikhar Durrani about government’s future strategy to reform the national carrier.
Speaking on the occasion, Durrani said the PIA had been ruined during last 10 years from 2008 to 20017 by PPP and PML-N governments.
He disclosed that a strategic business plan will be presented in March for complete revival of the national flag carrier as per vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
He also shared details of short term plan of the PIA management to arrest the trend resulting in national flag carrier facing financial losses.
He said the PIA was a national asset but regrettably the organisation suffered losses due to flawed policies in past.
Arshad Malik said PIA had best professionals and pilots and as a result of their cooperation, they in a short span of time had been able to improve service delivery.
He said, “Under the short term plan, we are trying to carry out hajj operation in the best possible manner.” He was confident that the airline will see improvement with each passing day.
The chief executive officer said, “We also evolved a strategy to stop bleeding and cut costs of the airline. We have suspended loss-making routes. We have introduced some profit-making routes and soon more will also be introduced.”
Arshad Malik said they had removed 200 ghost employees and action had also been taken against fake degree holders as per directions of the Supreme Court.
Soomro said PIA’s next CEO will be appointed on merit. He explained that an advertisement had been issued for appointment of a full time CEO. The minister further said that a comprehensive aviation policy will be announced next month.
Arshad Malik said, “Due to mismanagement and corruption PIA had become a liability. "
“Since 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,” he told newsmen at the Press Information Department (PID).
Secretary Aviation Division Shahrukh Nusrat was also present at the presser.
Arshad said that the five-year plan would undertake measures for cost saving, revenue generation, improvement and expansion of flight operations. “Financial restructuring through government support will also be part of the plan,” he said.
He said that revival of the airlines’ past glory was a daunting task but he had full backing of the minister for aviation to turn 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 overstaffing. “But I also found that PIA pilots, engineers and technicians were the best in the industry and they needed only ownership to harmonise their energies,” he added.
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.
“Flights to these routes were causing a loss of 500 million rupees every month,” he said.
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.
He said rationalisation, closure and rerouting of flights was yielding fruits as 200 million rupees would be saved per month. He said seven profit-making routes had been introduced where seat factor was around 95 percent as compared to the closed routes where seat factor was only 54 percent.
The night landing facility at Peshawar Airport is being restored and soon passengers, including expats will directly land there, he added.
The CEO said that PIA was operating a fleet of 32 aircraft out of which six were grounded rather abandoned. The overhauling of these aircraft is being done by our engineers and technicians, he said.
He said even engines of some airplanes had been removed and wings and other parts also disappeared during previous PIA managements.
He said the ground support equipment and vehicles, which were getting expired, were being refurbished.