Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has repaired its grounded Boeing 777 aircraft according to the airline spokesman Mashood Tajwar. The ill-fated aircraft, with registration AP-BHV, was grounded after engine problems almost fifteen months ago.
Since then the plane was being used for spares parts to support the rest of the fleet by the engineering department, the hopes that the plane would fly again had diminished. PIA had to spend a large amount of funds and efforts to bring the aircraft back.
Aircraft before repairs at Jinnah International Karachi, as reported by BBC Urdu in a report on 1st Feb 2019 –Â BBC
After repairs, a test flight was conducted successfully from Karachi to Nawabshah and back on Thursday. Airline’s CEO Air Marshal Arshad Malik congratulated the teams and declared it as a historic and major success.
The said aircraft is a Boeing 777-340ER wide-body aircraft that was delivered to PIA in December 2006 by Boeing. After the plane was grounded, the national carrier had to dry lease more aircraft to continue flight operations smoothly.
The aircraft’s return to service is now expected soon. It is expected to take off some burden from the long haul flights to international destinations.
Via: PKaviation, Dawn
15 months of hard work? Don’t give them that much credit. They only started working on it in November 2018. From February to November 2018, it was just rotting without vital parts.
This news shouldn’t be celebrated, PIA should be ashamed for allowing a 300 million dollar plane to sit idle for over a year.
with only 4 months of hardwork?
it should be praised
Did you miss the part where they left a 300 million dollar plane idle for months? If they hadn’t left it idle like that it wouldn’t need repairs in the first place. The plane was purchased using taxpayers’ money and it was mismanaged and needed repairs, which were done using taxpayers’ money too.
It’s like setting fire to your own home and patting yourself on the back for putting out that fire successfully after it burns half of it.
PIA Engineering and Procurements are infested with ex servicemen so I doubt if this plane is airworthy enough.
Plus, Nawabshah airport is not capable of handling a B777 with only 2.7km runway. It’s a typo in the news, I hope.