KARACHI: A proposed five-year business plan to turn around Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) suggests financial restructuring, independent decision making, re-organisation of company structure, restrictions to core business, financial discipline and human resource (HR) rationalisation cost controls.

The proposed plan also calls for reviewing destinations, fleet planning exercises and network expansion thereby increasing PIA’s network spread and passenger uplift.

The comprehensive business plan for the national flag carrier – covering 2022 as the base year and going all the way to 2026 – was presented by IATA Consultancy to the Minister of Finance Shaukat Tarin and Federal Minister of Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Tuesday.

The business plan preparation was commissioned by the Ministry of Finance last year consequent to the report by former special assistant to the prime minister on public enterprises reforms Dr Ishrat Husain, a statement said.

Dr Husain’s report was termed as a complete restructuring plan for PIA with the objective to not only turn around PIA towards profitability, but also converting it into an agile business unit, focused on its core operations.

The International Air Transport Agency (IATA) consultancy services were hired for the purpose, which after one year developed a five-year corporate business transformation plan.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2022