The national carrier, PIA, earned a revenue of Rs 64.07 billion for FY 2005, indicating an increase of Rs 6.2 billion over 2004, showing a growth of 11 percent.
This was achieved despite intense competition faced by the airline from private domestic carriers in as well as foreign carriers, a meeting of PIA Board of Directors, held at PIA Head Office, was informed on Monday.
The meeting, chaired by Chairman and CEO Tariq Kirmani, approved the audited accounts and reviewed the performance of the company for FY 2005. The airline, like the entire aviation industry, was adversely affected by unprecedented rise in fuel prices.
For PIA, the fuel bill increased from Rs 17.9 billion in 2004 to Rs 26.5 billion in 2005, reflecting a rise of 47 percent with impact of price increase alone being at Rs 7.6 billion.
The airline, however, was able to restrict the increase in all other operating costs (other than fuel) to 57 percent as against the inflation rate of around 10 percent.
All key performance indicators relating to the aviation industry, namely yield, market share, seat factor, number of passengers, aircraft utilisation, services standards and share value showed significant improvement during 2005 over FY 2004. In 2005, PIA carried 3.2 million international passengers capturing market share of 49 percent and 2.2 million in the domestic area achieving 65 percent share.
Seat factor on scheduled services was 73.1 percent in 2005 as against 69.1 percent in 2004. Both domestic and international seat factors recorded increase. Passenger and freight yields also recorded improvement over 2004. Fleet utilisation was higher than the previous year and even better than the industry average.
PIA had the highest flight punctuality during past 26 years, which stood at 67 percent in 2005. More encouraging was the unprecedented PIA flight regularity, recorded at 98.2 percent in 2005. This showed that all scheduled flights flew regularly, without being cancelled, and the cancellation percentage was less then 2 percent, while 87 percent of these flights flew on time.
In 2005, a high strategic priority in the Corporate Planning area was assigned to reduce the overall fleet age from existing 21 years to less than 9 years in the current Business Plan tenure.
PIA currently has a fleet size of 41 aircraft, with planned inclusion of 29 new aircraft by 2011. PIA fleet size will increase to 52 aircraft after some old aircraft are retired or disposed of. Out of 29 new aircraft, will be the new AIR 42 500 turbo props besides 12 777 LRs and Ers, which are already in the process of acquisition. Three ERs and two LRs have already arrived and three more are scheduled to arrive, and negotiations to acquire four more on lease are underway.
The reorganising of PIA's Marketing Department contributed immensely to the overall functional efficiency and performance indicators of the airline. The Marketing Department was restructured into four income streams namely 'passenger', 'cargo', 'group tours and charters' and 'other business', which included the newly activated SpeedEX, PIA's Courier Service.
In 2004, the average number of comment cards received was around 200 per week, of which complaints averaged 42 percent.
In 2005, with customer involvement and new methods of their engagement on hoard, they have responded with a feedback of averaging 2000 comment cards per week, of which the complaints fell to 19 percent.
This amply proved and was a sure indicator of the fact that the strategy and policies of PIA were on the right path to recovery and its positioning as a world-class airline. Recently, PIA acquired the IOSA certification for all operational areas and became one of 60 world airlines to achieve this feat.
Similarly, Engineering and Maintenance had successfully acquired EASA Certification after a detailed audit conducted by relevant agencies. This enhanced cost and functional efficiency, together with enhanced growth and improved competitiveness of the airline.
The meeting was attended by Kamal Afsar, Muhammad Fazal Agha, Nawid Ahsan, Muhammad Ashraf Chaudhry, Dr Sughra Junejo, M H K Khaishgi, Asad Ali Khan and Javed Saifullah Khan.