Do You Know How Many Crew Members PIA inducted per aircraft?

The Federal government has formulated a plan to make Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) a profitable organization that envisages a reduction in the size of employees from 500 to 250 per aircraft.

According to details, the restructuring plan prepared by the government in order to deal with the organization losses envisages 250 employees per aircraft instead of 500 per aircraft.

PIA announced a voluntary separation scheme (VSS) for its employees, including pilots and engineers, and asked them to apply for it by December 22 (today).

So far, PIA management has received more than 1300 employee applications for the scheme under Golden Handshake. Today is the deadline to apply for a voluntary retirement scheme. The PIA management plans to retire 3,500 employees under the VSS scheme and based on performance, a forced retirement scheme would be enforced with the completion time period of January 2021.

Sources revealed that the PIA administration has decided to introduce a compulsory retirement scheme after the VSS scheme.

PIA’s total strength is around 14,500 (including outsourced staff) while it currently has a fleet of 29 aircraft, which cost Rs2.06 billion per month.

When compared with other airlines, the officials said the PIA has a ratio of 500 employees per aircraft, while Qatar had 133, Emirates 231, Turkish 94, and Etihad 211. Qatar Airways is operating with 240 aircraft and a total staff of 32,000 employees,

Emirates operates 269 airplanes with 62,356 employees, Turkish Airlines has 329 aircraft and a workforce of 31,000 people. Etihad Airways has 102 airplanes.

In the PIA, the eligibility for early retirement was 20 years of service along with all applicable benefits.

But by benchmarking the 20-year cut-off service limit, employees who have completed 19 years of service may be deprived of terminal benefits that were allowed with completing 20 years of service.