PIA on road to recovery, some big achievements in last few months
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KARACHI - The national flag carrier has managed to recover one of its grounded Boeing 777 aircraft and is fast on its way to turn functional another of its year long grounded Airbus A320 with all chances to streamline the Hajj operation 2019.
Chief Executive of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Air Marshal Arshad Malik while sharing Eid greetings with the employees here on Tuesday, said their hard work and sincere efforts were greatly helpful in improving the performance of the organization.
He said Boeing 777 aircraft, abandoned for almost one and a half years, was fully functional and would be soon joined by Airbus that remained grounded for around a year. The latter was claimed to join the fleet during the current month.
The success to turn airworthy no less two of aircraft with sizable passenger and luggage capacity, he said was definitely a blessing that was being further complimented by improvement in revenue.
Malik in this context also highlighted importance of aggressive sales and marketing both in passenger and cargo, increased scheduled reliability (around 90%), overall seat factor (above 85%), product development initiatives such as cabin refurbishment, vibrant cabin crew, improved food quality, proactive and efficient supply chain management besides increased synergy between engineering and flight operation.
The PIA chief said to increase its ancillary revenues PIA had taken an initiative for the first time to commercialize the leg space/bulkhead seats.
"Alhamdulillah this niche met great success as we were able to earn an additional revenue of PKR 10 million in less than a month," he said claiming that the annual accumulation may soar between Rs 220-250 million.
The PIA was further claimed to be focussing on the cargo business, which though usually forms a significant portion of the total revenue but was neglected.
Expressing his gratitude to Allah almighty, Air Marshal Malik said positive developments were constantly emerging as the outbound load factor has reached close to 80% that otherwise remained stagnant at 50-55% in recent past.
He said the PIA was also in the process of acquiring new technology, fuel efficient aircraft to augment frequencies of flights and new destinations.
"It is my firm belief that we all have tremendous skills and if we keep contributing our best, there is no doubt that the PIA will climb new heights," said the PIA chief.
He further claimed that besides enhancement of revenues the initiatives towards cost saving without compromise on safety and quality have been encouraging.
