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The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) incurred losses worth Rs1.5 billion from flights to New York last year, Secretary Aviation Irfan Elahi informed the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Parliamentary Affairs on Wednesday.
He was answering a question by MNA Tariq Javed who inquired why PIA's service to New York was discontinued. Elahi also informed the committee that the service had been incurring losses for the past 10-12 years.
"Why do you not resign if the airlines is incurring such great losses?" Javed asked Elahi. At this Elahi said that he was ready to quit, adding that he was also serving as PIA chairman without receiving any extra benefits or salary.
Delimitation
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) briefed the committee on the process of delimitation, informing that the commission was ready to begin the process as soon as the relevant legislation was passed by the parliament.
Additional Secretary ECP Zafar Iqbal said that the commission's staff has already been trained and the review of electoral lists will begin next month.
The committee was informed that the ECP shall require five months to complete delimitation after receiving results of the recent census. Obtaining maps and other records will take a further one month, he said.
Tightening the process of political parties registration
The NA committee, chaired by MNA Shezra Mansab, recommended that a stricter mechanism should be adopted in registration of political parties. It suggested that the registration fee of political parties should be increased tenfold to Rs2 million.
It also recommended that a yearly fee of Rs0.5m should be imposed on political parties. Committee members also said that any expenditure by supporters of the candidate should also be included in the campaign spending.
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Comments (34) Closed
Nov 22, 2017 03:22pm
Is there anyone who is going to be held accountable to this?.
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Nov 22, 2017 03:23pm
how?
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Nov 22, 2017 03:58pm
Because PIA is my least option if i've to travel back to Pakistan. In the last 20 years, I've never used PIA for myself and booked only once for my wife when she had to travel back to Pakistan in an emergency.
You should not compare orange to Apples. If other airlines are making profit, it is because of their goodwill and Service.
PIA should start building its reputation and only then it may, if ever be, able to make profit.
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Nov 22, 2017 04:16pm
1,500,000,000 divided by 365 days in last year equals to PakRs. 4 million per day?
Or the whole airline loss is being shown as loss on one sector?
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Nov 22, 2017 04:22pm
Rs.1.5B losses incurred by PIA, why overstaffing in Management high salaries by official, first retrenchment in official cadre, than lower staff needed to retrenchment, I was on flight from Toronto=Karachi=Toronto, both way they have extra crew, approx at the time departure and landing 20 crews show up, once flight in air, only 2 or 3 crews serving passengers, remaining crew sleeping in business class, PIA needed independent administrator, Govt has already stopped KHI-NY flight now working on code sharing, they thinking to stop further overseas flights, PIA in future only domestic airlines, nation should not allowed Govt to stop international flight. SAVE PIA.
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Nov 22, 2017 04:40pm
@Confused its all corruption , overstaffing, and lackluster attitude with all state institutions. Its never gonna get right unless people of Pakistan ask and have authority to penalize the politicians for this sorry state of affairs.
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Nov 22, 2017 04:43pm
I have never across New York flight with vacant seats , always fully booked , how come the losses than
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Nov 22, 2017 04:52pm
Years ago gave up travel on PIA from US .Never could contact anyone on telephone.
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Nov 22, 2017 05:17pm
PIA has suffered losses of around Rs. 40 billion last year on all routes. Then why not shutdown PIA altogether? Why New York route only? The real thing is that some one has sold the PIA landing rights at JFK worth hundreds of millions of dollars to someone and pocketed the money. The other reason behind closing the NY route is that many people have eyes on the Roosevelt hotel worth more than a billion dollars. As long as PIA is operating flights for NY, it is not easy to grab it. Long live democracy and politicians of Pakistan.
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Nov 22, 2017 05:46pm
I had the pleasure to travel from London to Karachi and back after so many years. I would say PIA staff was one of the most caring staff in the world. They were caring for passengers, asking them for tea as if they were in business class. Stewardess came to us several times if my children needed anything. When I pressed the call button, staff came to my seat within 5 minutes. Compare that to Emirates, they never attend to on seat call buttons.
My suggestion is, if you have not traveled PIA for some time, travel again. They planes may not be as good, but the homely care is there and I have seen it.
If we dont support our airline, no one else will.
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Nov 22, 2017 05:49pm
Possible cause: May be incompetent managers, poor service, and ineffective promotion of services to prospective customers.
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Nov 22, 2017 05:58pm
They can't even run an airline.
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Nov 22, 2017 06:17pm
@Jay_UK thanks for your comments.
I been traveling from Toronto to Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad for last 45 years and refuse to travel any other airline simply because I want to support my country ... through thick and thin.
If you have any complaints then raise your voice instead of abandoning your national carrier.
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Nov 22, 2017 06:25pm
If you gather data of Pakistanis travelling to USA in general and New York in particular you would be astound to find the high numbers , now the question arises why are they not travelling through PIA ?
High Fare and Poor service booth are manageable and the same route could be turned profitable but here the bottom line is to make sure PIA is finished.Considering it is a revenue loss route for PIA and yet a profitable route for our present PM owned Air Blue why so ???
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Nov 22, 2017 06:45pm
How much of this amount was spent on salaries of the staff and also their perks? Does the loss include the price of the plane the German CEO took away while he was working as the head of the organization?
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Nov 22, 2017 07:36pm
@Kuladeep Patil " how"
If you have to ask that, than you certainly don't know 'why' either!?
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Nov 22, 2017 07:41pm
Should have taken more people in the "standing section". More revenue. Simple!
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Nov 22, 2017 07:45pm
PIA is a great airline but lately, it has been ridden with lots of troubles for its global as well as domestic 225 million hapless ad helpless potential Pakistani customers. However, PIA's ground, cabin and crew staff are well trained, courteous, cordial and highly professional people. Sadly, since last many years, it has been incurring financial losses coupled with lack of modern air-crafts including over-staffing as well as increase in tangible and intangible interventions from the "movers and shakers" in Islamabad, who make tall claims publicly to bring PIA's house in order but practically do nothing tangible to improve its dwindling state of affairs. It's bewildering and mind-boggling to realize and understand as to how and why a high-performing and reputed airline of yesteryears like PIA, who was instrumental in creating, introducing and launching other top brand global airlines like Emirates can't deliver any more in this modern fast moving and technology oriented era and time?
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Nov 22, 2017 08:06pm
Do they know the reaon for this loss ?
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Nov 22, 2017 08:43pm
PIA flights to NY have been loss making for several years. Now that a decision has been taken to stop flights on this route, a large cost element should be stopped immediately. This cost relates to several senior and middle management staff of PIA who are posted in USA and are paid large salaries/benefits. these should be called by immediately and reduce costs. Otherwise PIA will continue to incur huge salary and administrative expenses even when there is no revenue.
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Nov 22, 2017 08:46pm
@Confused In addition to service and attitude, PIA suffers from top heavy management costs. It has had several senior officials in USA receiving large salaries and benefits. Majority of these people are selected because of their political connections rather than their knowledge, experience or work ethics. This has been a huge drain on PIA bottom line.
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Nov 22, 2017 09:02pm
If PIA is privatized, the same airline would make profits from the same routes ! The incompetent management had been talking proudly about the losses and then justify their existence for this !
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Nov 22, 2017 09:07pm
Free loaders, twice in last couple of years , there were 2 paying passengers in the business class the rest of them were PIA employees ex and current and their relatives. I as the paying customer had to fight for my seat allocation. Safe to say the whole organization needs to be let go top to bottom and it should be privatized
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Nov 22, 2017 09:52pm
Because their service sucks and our current pm is not making money.
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Nov 22, 2017 10:20pm
Please report how much it cost tax payer of Pakistan, for PIA employees flying all over the world.
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Nov 23, 2017 12:14am
Did PIA CEO told what is their internal assessment on the causes and what steps have been taken to fix them.
This is a standard approach that any organization will take. But there should be a will to improve this organization. I think reason for these losses is broadly due to poor service and poor management; and these two are pretty much linked with each other. However despite all this I know flights from North America are mostly 75% full. Mainly elderly parents and mother's travelling with kids prefer PIA as it offer a non-stop/no plane change option. Please feel love for Pakistan and automatically one will start acting in a way that will benefit any organization and Pakistan.
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Nov 23, 2017 12:46am
I traveled once from japan to Pakistan and believe me it was worst possible flight I ever had in my entire life. Bad service with lack of time scheduling but yes meals were good.
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Nov 23, 2017 12:46am
This is why Pakistan was made for, eat, drink and be merry
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Nov 23, 2017 01:03am
Bangladesh Biman Airlines profits Taka 2.75 billion last year.
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Nov 23, 2017 01:15am
PIA should also publish how cutting a route will reduce loss by RS 1.5B. If the donot cut all the associated expenses with the route like salaries, planes and contracts then their losses will further increase. Some of the expanses like interest payment on overly priced purchases and long term contracts may not be cutable now.
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Nov 23, 2017 01:17am
Are other middle eastern airlines operating one the similar route also on the loss. Is it less passengers or higher operating expenses the problem?
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Nov 23, 2017 01:42am
Imagine saying "sir we have been losing money on this particular route for "10 YEARS" to any current corporate CEO/CFO. Need to fire the one with such news, and everyone else involved. PRIVATIZE and stop taxing the citizens. PIA crew and management has helped establish most gulf airlines and many others. May need to bring old management back...
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Nov 23, 2017 02:15am
@Jay_UK : I agree with you. I travelled so many times on PIA because it suits my schedule, luggage allowance etc. Except inflight entertainment, I have no other complaints as such. My suggestion to other passengers who have not travelled with PIA so far, try it once. Its not that bad. Its value for money.
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Nov 23, 2017 02:54am
PIA has lost trust of it's customer base, i.e. the overseas Pakistanis. Last time I travelled through the national carrier was in 1997. I bought one round trip ticket from JFK to KHI. It took quite an effort to secure confirmation of my journey but to my surprise the plane was only half full! No wonder the airline has taken a south turn.
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