LAHORE: Pakistan International Airlines Chairman Muhammad Ali Gardezi has said five 60-seater ATR 72 aircraft will be added to the national flag carrier fleet during November and December, which will resolve issues relating to domestic flights.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, he said out of the three Airbus A -320 planes, PIA had inducted two and the third one was expected during the month.

He said PIA was also planning to add 10 more A-320s on six-year dry lease and these aircraft are expected to join its fleet between January and March next year.

“Hence, by next year PIA will have 11 ATRs and 13 A-320s. PIA already has nine 777s and five A-310 aircraft and if finances permit these A-310s will also be replaced. With this combination of fleet PIA will be able to meet its capacity requirement,” he added.

Mr Gardezi also shared with the media that after the Hajj operation, PIA would ground Boeing 747 aircraft. “The rationale behind replacing the existing fleet of aircraft with new generation is to save fuel since new aircraft are fuel efficient,” he added.

According to him, to fill the capacity gap till November, PIA will be utilising narrow-body aircraft on wet lease from Jordan and Turkey and another two aircraft on wet lease from Bulgaria is expected next week.

He said with such a fleet all flight issues, including delays, would be addressed. Moreover, he said, PIA management was trying to improve domestic flight operation by increasing the frequency of flights to the destinations where it was low.

On the financial status of PIA, Mr Gardezi said efforts were being made to improve and save PIA’s finances. He claimed the management in the first six months of current calendar year had managed to slash PIA’s losses amounting to Rs10 billion (44 per cent) as compared to the corresponding period of last year. He said the losses for the first six months stood at Rs10 billion. “PIA has also registered operational profit of Rs338 million during this period,” he added.

He said the PIA had managed to reduce the losses by cutting airline costs and increasing revenue. On the cost cutting side, he said, PIA had reduced 200 foreign posts and this reduction would continue gradually. Majority of foreign positions where PIA’s flights were less in number would be abolished and replaced with general sale agents, he added.

“However, problems in the PIA still persist and cash flow is one of them. We are making efforts to address this problem and in near future will further improve cash flow. There is no shortcut to resolving the issues facing the national carrier, it will take time,” he added.

He also told the media that as part of cost-cutting measures, the PIA management had closed down all loss-making routes, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Katmandu, Bangkok,

Hongkong which were causing a loss of Rs461 million to the airline. “Other routes causing losses are under review at present,” he added.

On Haj operation, the chairman said PIA had successfully managed to conclude pre-Haj flights and now it was in the process of post-Haj flights. Admitting delay in some Haj flights from Jeddah, he said it was caused due to congestion at Jeddah airport. He said 80pc of the Haj flights were on time and the percentage would increase to 90pc.

Mr Gardezi said the PIA had opened an Aviation and Engineering Training Centre of international standard at Lahore and a similar facility would be inaugurated in Rawalpindi this month.

“PIA intends to open such centres in Peshawar, Swat, Quetta, Nawabshah, Sukkur, Multan, Faisalabad, Hyderabad and Muzaffarabad in near future. PIA will have licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineers in a few years,” he added.

There is only one PIA hub base at Karachi and the airline is planning to extend it to Lahore and Islamabad from where secondary routes will be operated. This will save costs from placement of PIA aircraft from Karachi.

To a question, he said the issue of payments to pilots, caused by cash flow problem, had been settled and their dues would be cleared accordingly.

To another question that why PIA was not making its grounded planes airworthy before going for new purchases, he said new generation planes were fuel efficient. Explaining, he said old A-320 plane consumed 5,000 liter fuel per hour during flight while the new one required only 2,000 liters for the same duration.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2014