PALPA helps PIA save Rs 400 million

Pakistan Airline Pilots’ Association (PALPA) has helped PIA administration in saving Rs 400 million, the biggest sum of money, ever saved through cost-cutting measures in the history of the airline and are working on saving millions more, PALPA President Captain Suhail Baluch revealed in a statement issued here today.
PALPA president stated that he is heading the cost-cutting committee as chairman constituted by PIA MD Nadeem Yousufzai and aims at taking immediate cost-cutting measures in order to provide some relief to the financially crippled national carrier. The committee includes senior and experienced members including First Officers Chakar Ali, Flight Purser Noor Leghari, he added.
He said that a team of PALPA members and senior PIA officials has been assigned a task to reduce the operational expenditures of the airline by utilising all possible options including the scheduling of national and international routes as well as destinations within a controlled budget. Through the experience of senior PALPA members included in the committee, planning of crew slip, cockpit crew and cabin crew patterns were reconsidered and massive cost-cutting measures were applied successfully, he added.
Baluch gave special credit to Flight Purser Noor Leghari noting his vast experience of scheduling roosters, huge budget of the airline has been saved as cabin crew and cockpit crew have been assigned the flights in the manner that they would not need to stay in hotels. Previously, the PIA management used to spend millions of rupees only as the staying expense of cabin crew and cockpit crew in luxury hotels, he added. PALPA president also thanked PIA management and MD for showing complete trust on the members of the committee and providing them full authority to wither away extra or unnecessary expenditures for reducing operational cost of the airline.