PIA’s Radical Restructuring Plan Includes Cutting its Workforce by 50%

National Flag Carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has decided to reduce its workforce by 50 percent and divide itself into a core and non-core business.

ProPakistani obtained the documents of the business plan which shows that the management of PIA will reduce workforce by giving voluntary retirement scheme or Golden Shake Hand. In both schemes, employees will be given onetime payment to settle all dues. These employees will not be entitled to pension, medical and free air tickets.

This business plan was approved by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and is now under consideration by the Ministry of Finance. Finance Ministry is evaluating the financial impact of this business plan and the money PIA has demanded to implement it.

In PIA business plan management says that currently, PIA employment is 18000 which is very high. With this number, the airline will not produce profits. PIA at least reduced 8000 employees and will bring the total employment down to 10000.

In the business plan, PIA has suggested that the airline be divided into 2 parts; core business and non-core business. With this division, almost 5 thousand employees will be out of PIA pay structure.

In non-core business, PIA will separate Engineering, Food services/ Flight Kitchen, Technical Ground Support, Printing Press, Cabin Cleaning. These departments will become separate companies.


ALSO READ

PIA Introduces New Affordable Executive Economy Class With Business Class Luxuries


In core business, PIA will have Aircrafts, Flight Operations, Safety, Marketing, Passenger Handling,

It’s worth mentioning that PIA employees are very active in anti privatization campaigns. In Feb 2016, all trade unions, under the leadership of Peoples Unity which is a wing of Pakistan People’s Party, protested against privatization. During protests, 2 employees were killed and several others were injured. For several days, PIA operations came to as halt.

In the most recent referendum, Peoples Unity won again and became the combined bargaining agent (CBA). If the airline management announces its plan for downsizing, we expect tensions to rise again and flight operations could be affected.

On the other hand, PIA management has taken the Pilots Association (PALPA) in confidence and since they are a part of core business module, they will likely not join protests against the plan.


  • I feel sorry for those who will lose their jobs but it is the only way to make airline profitable. PPP during their tenure gave jobs to so many people which over burdened the airline. Usually one airbus needs work force of 100 or less people while in PIA on 1 airplane there is a workforce of 700-800 people.

    • And on top of that there were snake CEOs who for their personal gains corrupted the entire airline.

    • PPP during their tenure gave (SOLD) jobs to so many people.
      PPP usually does not provide jobs BUT sales job. PPP devastated Steel Mills and so many big Organisations in this manner.

  • PIA, PSM are looted by PPP with political hiring..and those protesting against privatization are also PPP goons..

  • Smart and competent people are more likely to take Golden Shake Hand than incompetent, lazy employees. PIA should just fire all the employees associated with Peoples Unity to begin with, and then take steps for privatization

    • I don’t think establishment or supreme court will now allow privatizing airline after bad experience with k-electric. Instead they will try to fix it now.

  • If they did it with PTCL they can manage it here as well, albeit it would be more challenging no doubt.

    The plan is theoretically solid; fragment the organizational structure into independent entities each responsible for their own P&L and ideally, privatize the entities which are responsible for non-core operations. However, identifying and maintaining standards comparable to at least mediocre international airlines should be something they should plan and implement but I see no mention of that here (otherwise you’re just going to be looking at more of the same from PIA, just implemented from a different perspective).

    and regarding the part about selling jobs, this is prevalent in EVERY SINGLE nook and cranny of our government. Pakistan would start experiencing instant, immeasurable improvements if just this one aspect were to be contained and an iota of meritocracy introduced into civil servant sub-culture.

    Just hope some of this can be implemented prior to elections.

    • Mr. Simon, privatizing the core communication backbone of Pakistan was the biggest mistake in Pakistan’s commercial history.
      Its not just about an economic mistake, but also about state security.
      Do you know which company today managed the software part of the backbone? Please check and you might be surprised that it might be an Indian company!
      No other country allows a foreign hostile country to take over its core communication network, but we in Pakistan will sadly even sell our family for a few bucks!
      Actually given that we still have not been paid the full amount, Supreme court should IMMEDIATELY expel the usurpers of our critical infrastructure, and jail the culprits responsible for this massive security breach.

      • Excellent points and I 100% agree with you about the state security; heck I don’t think we need to look any further than CPEC and the terms & conditions of every energy company coming up through it (30 year BOT’s! the ROI on most of these companies would be no more than 5 years!). I mentioned PTCL as it was an example of a national asset outsourced despite the inherent local resistance.

        IMHO, if we’re going into history lessons, the biggest mistake in our country’s history was probably nationalization and my point stems from privatization as a theoretically effective tool for our national assets to dig themselves out of their commercial graves they’ve been in for decades. The components of the non-core operations should be sourced to local companies (or international companies with majority local ownership).

        As you’ve correctly stated, there’s nothing our morally bankrupt governments won’t sell as long as it lines their pockets (check up on the gold situation in Baluchistan, who forcibly took over Pakistan’s ion lithium mines, who defaulted on a sovereign debt to IPP’s; amazing how when it comes to a greatest list of Pakistan’s biggest, most prolific economic blunders, PPP keeps coming up). Sadly, if you were to identify and jail the relevant culprits for such actions, we’d probably have no one in government left :-).

        • Agree with you on each and every point Simon, good to see a few patriots still on here — my hats off to you sir! otherwise a few months ago we were flooded by Indian trolls. . . .


  • Get Alerts

    Follow ProPakistani to get latest news and updates.


    ProPakistani Community

    Join the groups below to get latest news and updates.



    >