PIA to set up 12 training centres

E-Paper | March 12, 2026

LAHORE: The PIA will build 12 training centres in all major cities within six months with an overall capacity of 1,200 students per year.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Aviation Shujaat Azeem said at the inauguration of one such training centre at the PIA Complex, Allama Iqbal International Airport, on Saturday.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Azeem said on the advice of the premier the PIA had taken this initiative for the youth as part of its corporate social responsibility.

“It will help our youth meet the challenges of airline industry. Lahore’s initiative is the first one while the second centre will be opened in Rawalpindi during this month. More centres in Peshawar, Quetta, Nawabshah, Swat, Muzaffarabad, Sukkur, Multan, Faisalabad and Hyderabad will be opened within six months,” he said.

He said the training centre had been awarded ANO-147 approval by the Civil Aviation Authority in line with the European standards.

He said: “We are offering airline industry courses on a competitive and affordable price compared to other local and international training centres.”

Commenting on the airlines’ current situation, Mr Azeem said 15 new aircrafts on dry lease would be inducted within few months while three Airbus A-320 aircraft had already been made part of the PIA fleet.

“Our utmost efforts to revive the national flag carrier are continuing and in the first six months of the current year we have been able to cut losses to over Rs8 billion or 45 per cent from the corresponding period of year of 2013.”

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2014

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Nadeem

Oct 05, 2014 09:22am

Good to hear about improvement trend. You also need to cut down on staff/plane ratio and bring it in line with other major airlines.

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Unshackle Pakistan

Oct 05, 2014 10:25am

What incomprehensible decision making is this? Government is set on selling PIA withing a year or two as it's costing tonnes of money to keep it afloat. Now the gov't is again improvising and putting more tax money into this new direction of training and education by an institute that can't even make money for itself? It's easier to sell something more compact than what's being done to an ailing business. The job of the PM is not to run a business to but to ensure the people of the country are free to improvise and use their entrepreneurial skills to make life better. This adventurism with declaring something failed yet continuing to pour more funds into questionable new lines of businesses is simply irresponsible and a waste of resources. @UnshacklePak

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Waseem

Oct 05, 2014 10:41am

On paper????

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Merchant

Oct 05, 2014 11:40am

Only two days before deparure, a friend was called in London from PIA offce n Karachi that his scheduled flight from Heathrow will go to Islamabad on eid day first rather than direct to Karachi. He is a heart patient and chose to travel by PIA because of direct flight. Which airline in the world changes the itinerary so blatantly? Is this change to make a VIP happy? I can only imagine these training centres are going perpetuate the shameful VIP culture. We desperately need a major overhaul of the system

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Cheebz

Oct 05, 2014 11:50am

They should first concentrate on getting the airline of the ground by having some reliability and integrity!!!

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Fazal Karim

Oct 05, 2014 12:06pm

Another ploy to recruit party loyalists at the cost of PIA and passengers. Please privatize this before its birth.

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Asad

Oct 05, 2014 12:07pm

Airline doob rahi hai aur yeh abhi bhi politics khel rahai. First and foremost remove all 'political' interference from the airline i.e. sack anyone who was politically appointmented which will bring down the staff / plane ratio. Try hiring a reputable MD not some ex 'air marshal' so PIA can stand on it's feet again. Otherwise there will be no airline left for the youth to serve!

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Rizvi

Oct 05, 2014 12:18pm

Can air line sector accommodate 1200 a year when PIA is already crowded? Another useless contribution. Instead of improving present lot, PIA is trying to capitalize the dreams of poor. Give more attention in core activities rather than entering in non core activities.

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One Nation

Oct 05, 2014 12:27pm

PIA should start by training its staff first, especially in basic hygiene and courtesy. Where are the 1,200 trained per year goingto get a job? PIA is already overstaffed.

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Parvez

Oct 05, 2014 01:45pm

this looks like a ploy to shift staff from one department to another newly created one......a ploy that will only add misery to the bottom line of PIA..............the answer to PIA's troubles are to SELL IT NOW OR SHUT IT DOWN.

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Omer

Oct 05, 2014 02:21pm

@Unshackle Pakistan following your line of argument, the government should close down all public universities and hospitals too because they can't make money for themselves!! By the way, had you been following news, you'd have known that PIA is to be split up and only the core business is to be privatised. And education and training is an investment, not a useless expense. Please get your perspective and information right before maligning everything under the sun.

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Oct 05, 2014 03:51pm

@Unshackle Pakistan I don't know exactly what is the real Strategy behind this, but I think these Training centeres can help PIA to manage its Excess trained staff and hence clear the big hindrance to privatization process. PIA can easily transfer their Expert staff in the training centres and hence earn good Revenue as well, BUT this is just a DREAM, real Face can be different.

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Oct 05, 2014 04:00pm

@Asad Its not an easy game, sacking some Respectable person who came with the Help of some other Respectable person in the Assembly, its not an easy thing, specially if Govt is dependent upon Opposition because of Weakening Mandate. Secondly, sacking trained persons will damage image of Govt. The best Strategy is to Handle the Excess Staff with Care, they should be offered some other Positions first. And Splitting PIA into two entities, and these training centers is a good strategy I think, to handle excess staff. Some employees may be involved in corruption, but its not easy to sack somebody straightaway, unless his corruption is proved in the courts. And Staff Unions is also a vary sensitive issue, to be handled before privatization.

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Oct 05, 2014 04:03pm

@Omer Sir jee Ghussa Na karo jee.... Khair way...... ;-)

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Khan

Oct 05, 2014 06:01pm

Cut down losses by 45% as compared to 2013, how many flights have been reduced as compared to 2013? Has the income also been reduced by 45%? Unless a drastic action is taken by reducing the number of employees who are not needed there will be no turn around. Political considerations cannot be accepted as a reason to continue on a destruction path. Dry lease/wet lease are band aid solutions which every government has been guilty of. We need business acumen in fixing the problem and not political considerations. We keep appointing the same people from within as leaders who never made any difference to the departments they managed and now we expect them to manage and turn around the entire airline? is that not wishful thinking? Does that not make one wonder that the people who are trying to fix the problem even know the problem?

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