PIA attracts 1m additional passengers this year

KARACHI: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Friday said it had attracted an additional one million passengers this year, which significantly helped to boost its share in air travel services.

The market share of the stateowned airline has “increased by 22 per cent on domestic flights and 3 per cent on the international sector during the current year,” said PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani.

“PIA Premier (service) has also played a key role in regaining the market share.(It) has played an important role in restoring passenger confidence and improving the brand image,” he added.

The airline introduced the premier flights on Lahore/Islamabad-to-London routes in August 2016.

Another official of the airline said the “departure of flights on scheduled time is (the) primary reason behind winning hearts and minds of the passengers.”

Other reasons for the increase in passengers are induction of new planes — narrow-body aircraft (A-320) — into the fleet over the last two years and serving of better-quality and different varieties of food on the flights.

PIA CEO Bernd Hildenbrand said the other day PIA had achieved a regularity of 99 per cent, while its on-time performance had reached 85 per cent, which was second only to Saudi Airlines in the region.

The official added that increased flight operation on various international and domestic routes had also attracted new passengers to the airline. In the current year, PIA has increased a number of flights on international routes, including Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Jeddah and Kabul. It has also started flight operation to Salalah, Oman this week.

Moreover, it has increased flights on domestic routes, including Islamabad-Faisalabad, Quetta-Multan, Karachi-Lahore, Karachi-Faisalabad and KarachiSialkot. The increasing number of pilgrims going to Mecca and Medina for performing Haj and Umrah remains a big source of passenger traffic to the airline.

As per recently unveiled plans, the airline aims to increase the number of aircraft in its fleet to 60 by 2020. At present, it has 38 aircraft. It also aims to start flights to Barcelona, Leipzig and Bangkok in the near future.

In addition to this, PIA is planning to increase flights to Paris, New York, Beijing and Toronto.

The airline, however, has not given any timelines for the new flights. The cash-strapped airline reported in October 2016 that its accumulated losses had increased by 2.3 per cent to Rs267.56 billion in the quarter ended March 31.

In calendar year 2015, the losses had piled up by Rs32.13 billion.

Gilani added that premier flights were a new business venture and they would take time to become profitable.