ISLAMABAD – Talking about the cost saving operations undertaken by the newmanagement of PIA, Chairman PIA has said a strategy was evolved to stopbleeding and cut costs of the national airlines.He said seven loss making routes including Lahore-Delhi-Lahore,Karachi-Dhaka-Karachi, Karachi-Muscat-Karachi, Karachin-KualaLumpur-Karachi, Karachi-Bangkok-Karachi, Pakistan-Paris-Barcelona andKarachi-NJF-Karachi had been suspended.“Flights to these routes were causing a loss of 500 million rupees everymonth,” he said.He said flight on Islamabad-Beijing-Tokyo-Beijing-Islamabad route wascausing a loss of 300 million rupees every month as PIA was allowed to pickonly 80 passengers from Tokyo on a 350-seat aircraft.He said rationalization, closure and rerouting of flights was yieldingfruits as 200 million rupees would be saved per month.He said seven profit making routes had been introduced where seat factorwas around 95% as compared to the closed routes where seat factor was only54%.The night landing facility at Peshawar Airport is being restored and soonpassengers, including expats will directly land there, he added.The CEO said that PIA was operating a fleet of 32 aircraft out of which sixwere grounded rather abandoned.The overhauling of these aircraft is being done by our engineers andtechnicians, he said.He said around 200 hundred ghost employees had been removed while actionhad also been taken against the fake degree-holders as per Supreme Courtdirections.Describing the non-professional attitude of the previous PIA management, hesaid that there was extreme lack of interest to run the national airline.Even engines of some airplanes had been removed, while wings and otherparts also disappeared, he said.He said the ground support equipment and vehicles, which were gettingexpired, were being refurbished.Special Assistant to PM on Media Iftikhar Durrani said as many as 550international flights were operating per week under the open skies policyin 2008, but unfortunately the number gradually declined to 376 flightsduring the next 10 years in tenures of Pakistan Peoples Party and PakistanMuslim League-Nawaz.Ironically, he said, the PIA started facing crisis with the ‘taking-off ‘ofthe democracy under the Charter of Democracy, adding “Exactly, it is aclassic case study of mis-governance from 2008-17.”