PIA Headquarters to shift to the Capital City by June 2021

As the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) continues its mega restructuring for the next year, it has announced that it will be shifting its headquarters from Karachi to Islamabad in June 2021.

PIA's restructuring plan includes reducing its workforce to half. As part of PIA's Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS), 3,500 employees will be let go. The national airline plans on reducing its 14,500 employees by 7,500 to save PKR 10.5 billion every year, as reported by Tech Juice.

PIA employees who were facing rule violations or poor performance inquiries will also be dismissed by January 2021 and each aircraft will now have 250 employees as opposed to the previous 500. Moreover, PIA has also shut down its courier service, SpeedEx, laying off 40,000 employees this year.

The corporate restructuring plan also include departmental changes, where non-core departments will be separated from the core departments by March 2021. Moreover, PIA plans on shifting its various departments to Islamabad in gradual phases. The commercial, human resource, legal and flight service departments will shift to the Capital City by January 2021. This will be followed by flight operation scheduling, medical, corporate development, works, and supply chain management by the end of February 2021.

Internal audit, corporate secretariat, and finance department will also shift to the Capital in March 2021, while the engineering department will be completely shift in June 2021 as part of the last phase.

In addition to this, PIA also plans on outsourcing its flight kitchens, technical ground services (TGS), and base maintenance engineering department to private companies through mutual agreements signed beforehand. The precision engineering department and its employees will now operate under the Pakistan Air Force (PAF).