PIA's Management Fights Back Privatisation
Islamabad: In what appears to be a
last ditch effort to ward off privatisation,
the management of the
Pakistan International Airlines
(PIA) recently unveiled a plan to
add international flights to boost
revenue and achieve breakeven
within a year.
PIA will add 16 weekly services
to cities like Toronto, Manchester,
Birmingham and Dubai as part of its
initiative to use limited aircraft on
profitable routes and rollback operations
from loss-making destinations,
PIA Managing Director
Captain Junaid Yunus told a press
conference.
It has also decided to give a
tough time to domestic competitors
as it starts operating nine additional
flights between Karachi, Islamabad,
Lahore and Quetta from next
month.
Yunus, who remained composed
throughout the press conference
despite facing stringent questions,
insisted PIA's main problem
was lack of revenues. "The entire PIA problem is that of (lower) revenues. If we are able to shore up sales, then we will breakeven in a year," he said. "We needed aircraft for that and unfortunately there have been delays." About the high number of employees, he said salaries were not a substantial part of cost. "In the next five years, many of them will retire and we estimate the strength will reduce to 12,000 to 13,000." Currently, PIA has 16,600 employees on its payroll with additional 2,700 working on contractual basis. But the measure for the proposed turnaround of PIA comes at a time when the government has announced its intentions to privatise the national carrier. In a speech broadcast last week, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif described financially troubled stateowned enterprises including PIA as a drain on taxpayers' money. "I am not challenging the government's decision in any way," said Yunus, who was appointed last year. "All I am saying is that we realise that PIA cannot continue to eat up Rs3 billion a month from national exchequer and we are trying to fix that problem on our own." PIA has set a target to increase revenue by additional Rs1.5 billion from these additional flights. Out of the 38 aircraft in its fleet, it has 26 operational planes. Yunus said the engineering department has been able to make eight A-310 aircraft serviceable while another one is being worked upon. "We have fought really hard for the aircraft. As a matter of fact, the highest number of tenders have been issued in my tenure," he said. In the last couple of months, the airline made nine attempts to lease aircraft that were all interrupted because of political or other reasons. "Nevertheless, we are going ahead with our plans to induct 14 aircrafts by 2014. The government has given us only Rs3 billion for this. We are talking with banks to raise the rest," said Yunus.
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