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Plan Afoot to Buy 40 Aircrafts for PIA: Defence Minister

Abu Zolfiqar

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ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar on Thursday informed the lower house of the parliament that Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has a plan to buy 40 new aircrafts during the next five years subject to the approval of cabinet.

Replying to question, he said that PIA’s deficit could be reduced with commissioning of new aircrafts to the existing fleet.

He said that the government was taking concrete steps to make the national airlines profitable organization. To a supplementary question he said that grounded Fokker aircrafts were sold through open auction. He said that currently, PIA is operating to 37 international destinations, however flight operation to Moscow has discontinued during the last two years due to its being a non-profitable route.

To another question, he said that new Islamabad airport would be completed by 2013. The minister said 4300 acres has already been acquired for Gwadar airport and site protection works including security fence, perimeter track and watch towers have already been started.


Plan a foot to buy 40 aircrafts for PIA: NA told - Breaking Pakistan News, National, World, Business, Cricket, Education, Health and Pakistan Politics Online


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why doesn't PIA add winglets or raked wingtip to every plane??
it increases fuel effieciency by very good amount!!!

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New Boeing 777 Raked Wing Tips Improve Fuel Efficiency, Good for the Environment

EVERETT, Wash., Oct. 01, 2002 -- Raked wing tips that were installed this week onto the newest Boeing 777, the 777-300ER (extended range) jetliner, not only improve the bottom line they're good for the environment.

The 6.5-foot (1.98 meter) highly tapered wing-tip extensions are being added to both of Boeing's 777 long-range jetliners, the 777-300ER and 777-200LR (longer-range) to improve the airplane's performance. The wing tips help reduce takeoff field length, and increase fuel efficiency and climb performance. Faster climb performance can mean quieter neighborhoods.

Through the use of raked wing tips, the 777-300ER airplane is expected to achieve a 2 percent fuel efficiency improvement, saving as much as $140,000 on fuel costs per year per airplane.
This equates to a savings of 1.3 million pounds of fuel per year per airplane, and 3.9 million less pounds of global warming carbon dioxide (CO2) being emitted into the environment. For every pound of fuel conserved, three fewer pounds of carbon dioxide are generated. The bottom line: the new raked wing tips help provide a more economical, cleaner and quieter airplane for the future.
 
interesting......send a letter to Defence Minister! Write a letter to Dawn or any major newspaper (im serious by the way)

1.3 million pounds / annum is good savings
 
How many Aicrafts did PIA operate till date?

Regarding the deficit of PIA it's all bcz of wrong policies and some corrupt peoples at the haed of PIA. For example every time when i try to buy a PIA ticket for traveling to Pakistan all the agents sell you tickets at high prices and use excuses like every flight is booked but when you come to plane you see many empty seats. This shows how corrupt are these agency agents at abroad too. For few more euro they don't bother to lost the customer and send half empty flight. Many time i preferred to travel with Emirates instead of PIA bcz of these attitudes. We Pakistani always prefer PIA over every other airline bcz we want to help our country but bcz of some wrong policies many decides to travel with other airlines. Hope they will make right policies and offer better services in future so more and more customers will travel with PIA!
 
Thats lots of money ...
Average plane can cost from 100 to 150 Million USD.
Is PIA ready to spend 4 to 5 Billion USD at this stage ? This will be 1 Billion USD per year for 5 year long purchase program. Even after such a huge expansion there is no guarantee to make profit. Airlines industry is very volatile, it is difficult to predict how business condition will be after 2 -3 years for PIA.
 
interesting......send a letter to Defence Minister! Write a letter to Dawn or any major newspaper (im serious by the way)

1.3 million pounds / annum is good savings

PIA has 42 aircrafts If I am not wrong... so thats basically

1.3 million x 42 = £54,600,000 or $88,819,704.51 worth of saving

thats about 88 million dollars saving :yahoo:
big money that is :)
 
PIA also owns investments in various countries; such as the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City
 
PIA also owns investments in various countries; such as the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City

Yaara seedhi si baat hai ke PIA can't make profit for various reasons.... first of all - we know about the heavy employment they have

1) They have recuited about 19,000 peoples for just 42 Aircrafts :woot:
2) The fares for domestic flights are too expensive that the common man don't even consider travelling in an aircraft for domestic purposes
3) Administration is corrupt
4) Lots of extra benefits are being awarded to PIA employees
5) Lots of non-profitable flights are in service
 
couldnt agree with u more; why do you think it wont be privatized....b/c govt. will lose its share and its over (and under) the table 'cut'

it is inefficiently run TO THE CORE. The pilots and crew are professional, but it is over-staffed.

i mentioned Roosevelt Hotel; $65 million was spent on renovation to make it nice inside & out; objective was to sell it for $1b and that plan fell through the cracks.

50% stake should be sold to private, PAKISTANI investors....though we all know this wont happen anytime soon

sargent Rehan's post was also very pertinent to this discussion; it would be sad to see a number of PIA pilots (many of them former PAF personnel) switch to Emirates or Qatar Air simply because they not only pay better, but are also much better managed.


PIA is a real reflection of the state of the country itself......once a beacon of light; but unfortunately mismanaged and a victim of corruption and criminal negligence. Inshallah I hope that a massive restructuring program is enacted.


Zaki -- are those ALL the aircrafts in PIA fleet or are they just the ones that are OWNED by PIA?

I understand that we also have a few Airbus aircrafts on lease.
 
You know I always wonder how comes Ryanair is going in profit despite offering tickets for very low rates. They start offering tickets at £1 i think and if Airport taxes are included it still remains less than 20 pounds for various destinations.

Last time I travelled from London to Oslo (Norway) and back to London and that cost me only £10 for return ticket or you can say about 1250 rupees for almost 1000 miles of journey. Its 1 hours and 40 minutes flight and you can say its a small carrier so must be holding about 150 passengers i think. Now calculate yourself.... 150 x £10 = £1500 pounds for "return" ticket

and now in this £1500 pounds (or 750 pounds for single journey) they have to pay a fee to its pilot, staff, airport tax, administration fee, marketing etc. But despite running such a cheap service still they are going in profit every year...

Look at the increasing numbers of passengers each year for this airline

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This is a typical aircraft they use in their service

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Now I am failed to understand why can't we have similar service in Pakistan? - why can't Pakistan have small aircrafts running domestic flights for like 500 - 800 rupees from Lahore to Karachi? They are almost same in journey but they are in Pakistan (a cheaper country) so they should be offering cheaper prices instead. But what they are doing is, offering a ticket ranging from 4000 - 6000 rupees if I am not wrong (last time i checked it was 5500 rupees i think).
 
Zaki hopefully once there is a respite and our economy (Inshallah) picks up, so will domestic consumption and an increase in inter-provincial travel

in all honesty, i'd rather drive from Peshawar to Lahore, or Lahore-Islamabad simply because driving on motorway always brings me joy.

realistically, how often is it that somebody in Gujranwala needs to travel to Bannu, for example......


another thing is, if our security situation were to improve --we could go back to becoming a tourism hub and that would have huge benefits for our national airline carrier
 
For domestic air travel one should encourage private aviation sectors.
In low cost airlines , one need very flexible and thin management which can take decision as quick as possible to adapt daily changes in sector.
For government agency it is very difficult to take decision to reduce price or layoff permanent staff/contractors.
Again you can't stop misuse of airlines facilities by ministers and high level officials if it is under government control.
To set up private domestic airlines with half a dozen fleet of small planes is not so difficult provided government give all licence immediately.
They will even create huge employment and improve business and tourism as people can travel from one place to other very quickly.
We seen aviation industry's transformation in India under Praful Patel. Now aviation is one major provider in Indian growth story.
 
First of all I agree with your post, but I guess my way of thinking is little bit colliding here so please don't mind - not criticizing anything - just putting things from my perspective

Zaki hopefully once there is a respite and our economy (Inshallah) picks up, so will domestic consumption and an increase in inter-provincial travel
Insha'Allah - But whatever limited resources we have, we aren't utilizing them either:cry:
in all honesty, i'd rather drive from Peshawar to Lahore, or Lahore-Islamabad simply because driving on motorway always brings me joy.
Same here, Would love to drive on motorway from Gujrat/Gujranwala to Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar or other cities within 300 radius miles
realistically, how often is it that somebody in Gujranwala needs to travel to Bannu, for example......
Well there is no domestic Airport in Gujranwala either. You can have 3-4 daily flights running from Lahore & Sialkot airport to Gwadar which is about 1700 kilometers. So basically anybody who wants to travel far deep in Pakistan, They can travel to Lahore, Sialkot airports and passengers shouldn't be a big issue considering our large population. It is the fares that has halted them to use these airlines. If nothing works, we can use smaller aircrafts like I gave an example of "Ryanair". Nobody would like to travel 1700 Kilometres on private cars, coach or buses. But if the price of Gwadar airport is reduced to only 600-700 rupees I am sure many peoples would love to travel on daily routines. That will easily connect two provinces with each other and peoples in general would love to travel on daily basis.

This will help the peoples of both provinces get together and bring closer to each other.

Like I said before, the flights already exists...but the fares are horribly too high. They needs to be curbed and bring it under the budget of a common man and that will improve the efficiently of this airline.

another thing is, if our security situation were to improve --we could go back to becoming a tourism hub and that would have huge benefits for our national airline carrier
yes, I am very optimistic for future but the airlines are already running. Its just like they are too expensive that a common man is fearful to travel. Look at India...They reduced the prices and made it competitive to their trains - and see all the airlines boomed in no time
 
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well that is why apart from security, proper management and fiscal sensibility, you also need a strong competitive environment so that there is competitive pricing -- which in the end benefits both the most efficient carrier as well as provides cheapest cost to consumer

we get dirt cheap fuel from the Saudis, we have large population that always does use PIA, and even then this company is having problems with unsustainably high operating costs


there are tiny tiny companies existing --especially for serving FATA. They are going in tiny single prop aircrafts from Peshawar to other places. They seem to be doing reasonably well, since going from KP to FATA by road is not as safe as it used to be; especially to Kurram.
 
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