ISLAMABAD – For the first time in history, PIA shows remarkable performancewith largest ever fleet.
Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) government’s revival plan for PakistanInternational Airlines (PIA) has finally started to bear fruit, and it’sevident in its annual results.
As per statistics received from the airline, PIA’s annual profit jumped toRs. 144 billion in 2019 as compared to Rs. 99 billion in 2018. A Rs. 45billion increase in revenue is more than half of what the national flagcarrier earned in the entire year of 2018.——————————
The increase in revenue clubbed with a significant reduction inexpenditures has reduced the airline’s fiscal deficit by nearly 65 percentin one year.
The total financial gap, which stood at Rs. 38 billion in 2018, has nowreduced to Rs. 17 billion with the management hoping to bring it to zero bythe end of the current year.
The documents show that the national airline’s per kilometer income hasrisen from Rs. 6 to Rs. 9, in the previous year. Furthermore, its seatfactor has also improved to 81 percent from 77 percent in the correspondingyear.
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As a result of improved and quality services, the passenger influx has alsoincreased by a significant margin within a year. As per official numbers,PIA received 125,000 more passengers on domestic and international routeslast year as compared to 2018.——————————
The management also introduced pre-booking for bulkhead seats, which provedto be a hit with the customers. Last year, the airline collected anadditional revenue of Rs. 178.5 million from this strategy. Moreover, aminor tweak in the luggage policy also added Rs. 500 million to its income.
Similarly, for the first time in PIA’s 73-year history, the entire fleet of32 aircraft, including 12 Boeing 777, 12 Airbus 320 and eight ATR planes,is fully functional, taking part in extended domestic and internationalflight operations.
Note that the national flag carrier was recently excluded from the PakistanStock Exchange’s (PSX) defaulters list. The airline is now placed among theregular trading companies.
