KARACHI: Of 2,771 scheduled flights, 870 flights of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) were cancelled or delayed in the month of November last year, taking the percentage of such flights to over 31 per cent, according to a report.

The Flight Regularity and Punctuality Report prepared by the PIA’s Flight Operations Department says that 128 flights were cancelled while 742 others were delayed, bringing the regularity rate to 95 per cent and punctuality rate to around 72 per cent during the period mentioned.

The report says that approximately 72 per cent punctuality achieved by the national carrier during November was way below the pathetically low target of 86 per cent set by the airline for itself.

Take a look: More than half of PIA flights delayed in August: report

The report shows that international operations of the airline fared relatively better because lesser percentage of its flights were cancelled or delayed as compared to the organisation’s domestic operations.

A total of 2,771 flights were scheduled during November but 742 flights were cancelled and the national carrier could operate only 2,643 flights. Of the 2,771 flights, 1,248 were international and 25 of these were cancelled. The remaining 1,523 flights were domestic and 103 of these were cancelled.

Out of 2,643 flights that were operated 1,223 were international and 192 of these were delayed, whereas the remaining 1,420 flights were on domestic routes and 251 of these were delayed.

The report shows that engineering and maintenance problems were behind 138 flight delays and 31 cancellations which on the one hand points to the ageing fleet of the national carrier and on the other reveals that in too many cases the airline’s overstaffed engineering department could not make the aircraft airworthy in time.

The report reveals that 86 cancellations and 38 delays occurred due to commercial reasons making it plain that either the airline’s route planning was faulty or its commercial department failed to fill sufficient number of aircraft seats.

According to sources, the airline has tried to shift the responsibility for 565 cancellations or delays to other agencies and has accused immigration and customs departments of affecting 37 flights, security personnel (28 flights), air traffic controllers (82 flights), weather (62 flights), the Civil Aviation Authority (70 flights) and undefined “others” 286 flights.

Published in Dawn February 14th , 2015

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