PIA to Bring a Number of Grounded ATR 42, Airbus A320 and Boeing 777 Aircraft Back Into Service

[Usman123]

Long time since the Retro BMG was airborne! and whats the update on BGJ?

Why not paint BGY/BGZ in Retro Livery as they are the most flown birds internationally.

[Abbas Ali]

PIA Making Efforts to Bring 3rd ATR 42 Back into Service

On January 28, Aviation Minister Khawaja Asif informed Senate that currently PIA fleet includes three ATR 42-500 aircraft, of which one is grounded. Efforts are underway to bring the grounded aircraft back into service to resume flights to underserved areas.

PIA ATR 42-500 aircraft registrations:

AP-BHH currently active
AP-BHI currently active
AP-BHM grounded and stored at Karachi Airport since February 20, 2023.

Abbas

[bukhari917]

Why not paint BGY/BGZ in Retro Livery as they are the most flown birds internationally.

Khawan nu ni dhaila, kardi maila maila

[Karachi Aviator]

PIA Making Efforts to Bring 3rd ATR 42 Back into Service

On January 28, Aviation Minister Khawaja Asif informed Senate that currently PIA fleet includes three ATR 42-500 aircraft, of which one is grounded. Efforts are underway to bring the grounded aircraft back into service to resume flights to underserved areas.

PIA ATR 42-500 aircraft registrations:

AP-BHH currently active
AP-BHI currently active
AP-BHM grounded and stored at Karachi Airport since February 20, 2023.

Abbas

PIA made Karachi-Sukkur a daily flight and also increased flights for Gwadar and Turbat. These flights alone might need 2 atrs whilst the other atr can do the northern operations to Gilgit. Hence it makes sense to bring back AP-BHM.

Like KHI-SKZ, PIA should make GWD-KHI and TUK-KHI a daily flight too and offer some connections to the ME as well.

[Abbas Ali]

Apparently, PIA also resumed flights between Turbat and Al Ain with ATR 42 recently.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight ... /OPTU/OMAL

Abbas

[Usman123]

More ATRs are required for increasing connectivity on low demand routes!

And hopefully they won't get scrapped as PIA has an A320 simulator now to train their Pilots on

[AP-BGY]

PIA understands the benefit it can reap with a larger operational ATR fleet. But they purposely don’t want to prioritise the ATR fleet for 2 reasons.

1) All 777 first officers now start command on the 320 so they only have old line captains and contract captains flying the ATR. Therefore there is minimum crew on the ATR especially captains

2) Most first officers don’t want to fly ATR since they look forward to being promoted.(Justified) If the fleet increases so does the demand for those flying it. They’ll have to hire people and it’s easier for the airline to keep the current fleet, not promote and not allow a void to be created for new pilots to fill. This maximises flying on the 320 for those already on it and helps justify stalling promotions at the lower level.

[Usman123]

Why not hire cadet pilots from their own academy? What happens to their future?

[AP-BGY]

There is no PIA academy anymore

[Amaad Lone]

Might be a better idea to move the turbo prop operations to different airline, take it off the books of PIA.

The days of a flag carrier are over, and an airline needs to make economic sense.

So maybe the government can create a new airline with a fleet of 5 or 6 ATR42 and operate the "social routes".

[Karachi Aviator]

Atr routes operated by PIA include Sukkur, Gwadar, Turbat, Gilgit and Skardu. All airports except Gilgit can handle a320/737 aircraft. The government should downgrade all of these airports to socio-economic status (if they're not) and offer some incentives such a not charging landing & housing fees etc.... which might attract the private carriers to operate to these stations. PIA can get rid of its ATR fleet and focus on a320s and 777s.

If sukkur-karachi route can be made a daily flight using atr aircraft then surely there's enough traffic for 3-4 weekly a320 flights. Gilgit-Islamabad is almost a double daily atr flight and Skardu-Islamabad 5x weekly. Surely PIA won't loose a lot of money by switching from atrs to a320 on these routes.

[planefan2003]

I urge everyone to watch the video below, it shows the shocking state of PIAs A320.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGdDKshQG/