Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar (Retd) Suleman was felicitated on his appointment as PIA Managing Director by the members of National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence, held here at PIA Head Office on Tuesday. The meeting, chaired by Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, hoped that Rao Suleman would turnaround the national flag carrier.
Responding, PIA MD Rao Qamar Suleman thanked the National Assembly Standing Committee and expressed that PIA could be turned around for which difficult decisions, hard work and discipline would be required to make the system more efficient for bringing about gradual change for the betterment of the airline. The Committee extended full support to the PIA management in improving the airline.
The Committee was apprised of PIA business plan, fleet renewal programme, the airline routes and their economic viability. Besides, the Human Resource Policy and the pilots retirement age were also discussed. The Committee was informed that PIA closed down Barcelona-Chicago route due to heavy losses and would be re-deploying capacity to New York. Besides, as soon as the business plan is approved more destinations would be explored.
The Committee was informed that people living in remote areas would have the facility of buying their tickets through Easy Paisa outlets; the facility is expected to be made available by end of April 2012 instead of coming to major cities for the purpose, besides web ticketing and PIA franchises. PIA has already sent a case to the Ministry of Defence for increasing the retirement age of pilots from 60 to 65 years.-PR
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