ISLAMABAD, Jan 16: Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali has directed the senior management of the PIA to attain the highest standards of public service and efficiency.

He was attending a briefing on PIA at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat on Thursday morning.

The prime minister said that being the national flag carrier, it was imperative for it to establish and maintain the highest standards of public service and efficiency. “It should be the symbol of our national pride,” he added.

Mr Jamali lauded the fact that the corporation had effected a turn around from a Rs5 billion loss-incurring body in the year 2000 to a Rs2.5 billion profit making organization in the year 2002, under adverse circumstances and in a comparatively short time.

He asked the management not to remain content with the achievement but keep working hard and improve all areas of service.

The premier said that customers’ satisfaction should be the ultimate goal of all those who had been assigned the task of managing the airline.

He also instructed the management to examine the possibility of bringing back the bodies of those expatriates Pakistanis, free of charge, who died in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with the resumption of Peshawar-Chitral flights and exemption of airport tax for the people of Chitral.—APP