New A-320 planes to start joining PIA from this month; Govt committed to end corruption

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly was informed Wednesday that new A-320-200 aircrafts will start joining Pakistan International Airlines fleet from current month.

Minister of State for Cabinet Secretariat and Parliamentary Affairs Aftab Sheikh told the House the government has approved financing for acquisition of 11 narrow body aircrafts on dry lease. "These aircrafts will be joining PIA fleet from April 2014 to October 2014".

He said the government has injected Rs 16 billion for debt servicing and to acquire aircrafts on lease besides acquisition of four narrow body aircrafts on wet lease from Turkey and Czech Republic for three months.

He further stated that ECC has approved sovereign guarantees to GE Company for overhauling of Boeing 777 engines while rationalization of domestic and international manpower and offices is underway.

The minister also mentioned to cost cutting measures in every sector amounting to billions of rupees, fuel rationalization and route rationalization and said, "PIAC performance has shown up-surge owing to these measures".

He informed that there is plan to divest 26% shares of PIA to a strategic partner with complete management within a period of one year through the privatization Commission to stop recurring bleeding of resources of the corporation.

This endeavor is being done to offset the airline from recurring losses and to improve its services. Answering a supplementary question, the minister said, flights on more routes can be initiated only if the routes are profitable. He stated that due to mismanagement and corruption in PIA during last 14-15 years the liabilities have mounted.

Therefore, there is no proposal to cut the PIA fare in near future. However, it can be done once the organization stabilizes financially.

Answering another question, the minister said, PIA was fined Rs 4.169 million from October 2013 to March 2014 for carrying passengers on forged documents and the organization has in turn recovered Rs 1.090 million fine amount from the concerned passengers.

He explained that expiry of re-entry visa, traveling without documents, no visa, traveling without passport, wrong port of entry and revoke of residence permit by Interior Ministry had been the reasons for imposition of fine.

He said as PIA has no integrated system with other states agencies, checking the authenticity of travel documents is the prime responsibility of FIA and Immigration agencies.

In reply to another question, the minister said, after having the new generation of aircrafts, in the first phase B-737-300 aircrafts will be grounded.

Moreover, he said, after this year's Hajj operation, B-747-300 aircraft will also be grounded and all of them will be put on sale. Similarly, at some later stage, the 06A-310-300 aircraft will also be grounded and put to public auction. The B-737-300 and B-747-300 number to be grounded is six.

These aircraft, he said, will be auctioned through open bidding because there is no expertise with PIA to repair these old planes.

It was also informed that the government is also improving punctuality, quality and service on domestic and international routes while quality of food is also being improved in line with international airlines practices.

The minister agreed that number of employees per aircraft is very high, therefore, the government is inducting new planes and excess employees will be associated to these employees.

"The government is committed to make PIA compatible to other airlines and add more planes to adjust the employees instead of offloading them," he added.