ISLAMABAD: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the national flag-carrier, has launched an application to facilitate passengers in online reservation and confirmation of seats through mobile phones.
“The application has recently been launched and now the air passengers will enjoy better services,” a PIA spokesman told.
He said a number of initiatives had been taken to improve efficiency of the PIA, which has started yielding required results, especially after effective tackling of the seat-factor. “The airliner’s overall seat factor has improved and reached nearly 84 percent whereas on some sectors, the seat factor is at 90 percent,” he said.
The PIA aircraft have been made operational and now all Boeing 777s and A320s were operational.
He said the airlines was now moving on the right track without any outer influence and pressure; adding the PIA had tremendous potential to rise for which concerted efforts were underway to transform the national flag-carrier into a more viable and profit-earning entity.
He said significant improvement was evident in different indicators like seat occupancy ratio, aircraft utilization, cargo load factor and customer service.
He said in the recent days, the PIA had also signed an agreement with a private online taxi service to facilitate passengers. As per the agreement, the passengers receive the promo code with their in-flight conformation SMS and get discount on rides.
To a question, he said PIA had earned Rs17 million in over less than two weeks with a paint job for a foreign customer. The experienced PIA team took only ten days to complete the intricate paint job for the foreign airline.
“We completed a paint job in just ten days for a foreign customer and earned Rs17 million from it. We executed the intricate paint job with custom made stencils” he added. The airlines did the job for ATR 72 aircraft 9S-AAD of Fly CAA Company from Congo.
The department had recently developed an in-house facility to repair Cessna, small aircraft, primarily used for flight training and personal use.
He said : “PIA Engineering and Maintenance has achieved a milestone in maintenance of Cessna. They’ve developed an in-house facility to repair the
propeller which will be utilized by flying training academies.”
