PIA adds aircraft A320 to its fleet

KARACHI: Pakistan International Airline (PIA) just after a month, has added another aircraft A320 to its fleet, which was grounded for more than 13 months.

According to a PIA spokesperson on Wednesday, this is the second grounded aircraft after Boeing 777 that has been made operational and will now be part of PIA's active fleet with no grounded aircraft left behind except for mandatory routine maintenance checks.

The said aircraft Airbus A320 registration AP-BLV was grounded in May 2018.

CEO PIA, Air Marshal Arshad Malik after joining PIA had instructed to make all grounded aircraft operational.

The PIA had earlier requested the Government for financial support for reviving the grounded aircraft which though, did not materialize.

However, despite its financial constraints the airline utilizing its own resources managed to revive these aircraft.

The test flight was carried out successfully on Tuesday.

These recently revived aircraft Boeing 777 (made already operational from June) and A320 aircraft will be utilized for PIA's Hajj operation.

Due to this PIA did not go for acquisition of aircraft on wet lease as per previous practice despite an increased number of Hujjaj to over 80,000 this year.

It will definitely go in significant cost savings for the airline.

The CEO has congratulated PIA Engineering, Flight Operations, Finance and Supply Chain Divisions for their sincere and untiring efforts and announced appreciation letters for the work, the spokesperson said.