Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which is currently in the deficit, intends to cut its aircraft-to-employee ratio from 260 to 220 by 2022.
PIA’s decision comes at a time when other airlines across the world are cutting costs due to travel restrictions and a collapse in global air travel during the coronavirus outbreak.
“The employee to aircraft ratio had been brought down to 260 from the level of 550 employees per aircraft in the year 2017,” the airline said in a statement.
“This reduction in employees has brought PIA at par with international aviation industry standards,” the flag carrier stated.
“With the induction of aircraft, this year PIA fleet would further bring down the number to 220 employees per aircraft.”
Since 2017, when the national carrier’s entire strength was around 16,500, PIA had reduced its employees by more than half. The airline now employs 8,156 permanent employees.
“PIA’s human resource reforms have yielded great results, and the airline has been successful in reducing HR numbers to realise annual savings of Rs8 billion,” it stated.
The reform process will continue, according to the statement, and more aircraft would be added to the fleet, improving the quality of PIA’s service.
The workforce was reduced as a result of voluntary separation schemes (VSS), false degree holders, and personnel fired for disciplinary reasons.
A voluntary separation scheme was chosen by 1,900 employees, while 837 individuals were terminated due to fraudulent degrees and 1,100 employees were terminated due to disciplinary reasons.
“Around 800 to 900 people have also been retiring every year,” it added.
The PIA intends to employ fewer than 5,500 people on 45 aeroplanes, or fewer than 125 people per aircraft. In order to move forward with the VSS, the government allocated Rs12.87 billion in funding for the airline in 2020.
The International Civil Aviation Organization announced this week that Pakistan’s civil aviation agency had addressed major safety concerns raised by a 2020 scandal involving false pilot licences.
In June 2020, the government suspended 262 airline pilots suspected of cheating on mandatory licence tests, a scandal that stained PIA, which European and US aviation regulators blacklisted from their respective regions.
In the financial year 2020, PIA made a loss of Rs34.6 billion. In 2019, the losses were higher, totaling Rs56.03 billion. The annual financial results for the fiscal year 2021 have yet to be released by PIA.
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