Pakistan International Airlines to lay off half of 14,000 employees

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s federal cabinet has approved a restructuring plan for the country’s national air carrier that entails laying off half of its 14,000 employees, replacing fleet and closing loss-making routes, a report published in international media said.
Quoting the prime minister’s adviser on institutional reform, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Bloomberg said the government was striving to turn the Pakistan International Airlines into “a very lean and efficient organization” and make it profitable by 2023.
The airline’s employee-to-aircraft ratio far exceeds most foreign air carriers, and it has been stopped by international regulatory agencies to fly to various lucrative destinations in the United States and Europe after a senior minister claimed last year most of its pilots had fake licenses.
“The carrier posted a net loss of 34.6 billion rupees ($226 million) for 2020, which despite the challenges from Covid was an improvement from a deficit of 52.6 billion rupees the previous year,” Bloomberg reported.
Apart from adopting various cost-cutting mechanisms and rationalizing its operations, Hussain said the airline would also outsource its non-core operations like catering and engineering. He added that PIA would also look for more fuel-efficient planes.
Pakistan’s information minister Fawad Chaudhry told a media briefing on Tuesday that the national air carrier’s operational losses had been reduced from Rs57 billion to Rs1 billion and described it as a “great success.”
He said that the PIA’s employee-to-aircraft ratio of 450 was the highest in the world and attributed it to the failings of previous administrations that were practicing politics of patronage.

Pakistan International Airlines to lay off half of 14,000 employees