NA told: PIA was incurring Rs1bn annual losses on NY route
AAMIR SAEED
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has temporarily suspended its flight operations to New York due to Rs1 billion annual losses on this route.
Parliamentary Secretary for Cabinet Secretariat Raja Javed Ikhlas informed this to National Assembly on Monday while responding to a calling attention notice submitted by the Pakistan Peoples Party’s members.
PPP member Naveed Qamar said that it seems as if the PIA is suffering losses on all routes except Saudi Arabia and London and a time will come when the national carrier will be closed down on pretext of the losses.
He also questioned the government for starting premier service at a time when the PIA was facing colossal losses, besides questioning the government’s intention of getting airplanes on wet lease.
PPP member Shazia Marri said if the PIA was suffering losses, why the government appointed a foreigner as its CEO on a hefty monthly salary of Rs5 million.
She said that it is responsibility of the government to improve the PIA service and make all its national and international routes profitable by introducing transparency in the national carrier’s operations.
Responding to this, the parliamentary secretary said that there were only 18 aircraft in the PIA fleet when his party came into power in 2013 and now the number of airplanes has increased to 38.
He, however, admitted that majority of the PIA airplanes are old and require a lot of amount each month for their maintenance.
The parliamentary secretary also blamed the huge manpower of the PIA for losses of the national carrier, saying that 14,500 employees of the PIA are sufficient to look after operations of the over 150 airplanes, but they cannot handle even 38 airplanes properly.
He also informed the House that his government took a total of 24 airplanes on the lease, out of which 20 are on dry lease and only 4 are on the wet lease.
The PPP members, however, rejected the arguments of the parliamentary secretary and a written brief about operations of the PIA to the members of the National Assembly.
