ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmad on Thursday informed the National Assembly that a proposal is under consideration to restructure the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) through strategic partnership.
During Question Hour, he said, that Privatization Commission has been tasked to carry forward the process of privatization of core activities of national airline by divesting 26% of its share with complete management.
He said the objective is to offset the airline from recurring losses and to improve its service for the travelling passengers.
He also enumerated the steps being taken to improve performance of PIA including fleet modernization; closure of non-profitable international routes, and adoption of a comprehensive fuel cost control strategy.
The Minister said officers of good reputation service record and relevant experience have been posted on important posts. He said many departments have been merged to improve horizontal coordination of the organization.
Sheikh Aftab said that various less economical or loss making domestic and foreign stations of PIAC have been closed. The surplus staff has been posted to other department according to their experience in order to get better advantage of their services and area of expertise.
Flight on various loss making routes have been suspended. Now PIAC is not operating on routes such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Bangkok etc. At domestic level direct flight routes were adopted to curtail cost.
He said measures to control fuel cost is the focal point of cost control drive. A comprehensive fuel cost control strategy has been devised based on best industrial practices.
The Minister said in order to minimize the costs, PIAC is in process of acquiring fuel efficient narrow body aircraft on lease.
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