How PIA might be able to reduce the threat of competition from Gulf Careers

Many Pakistani passengers- perhaps majority- prefer to fly on airliners from the Persian/Arabian Gulf region when traveling to Middle Eastern, European and/or African destinations. Even foreigners who come to Pakistan or leave the country prefer Gulf airliners.

This is due to the lower fairs and "better quality service" (this is subject to opinion and most hold the opinion that gulf airliners provide better service).
Over the recent years gulf airliners have grown and increased frequency in Pakistan and the West, connecting the two via their hubs in the Middle East.

Ever since, PIA has been loosing passengers to it's destinations mostly in Europe and North America. Even when I flew on their Airbus 310 during the travel season between Karachi and Kuwait, the plane was mostly empty.
During a summer flight in 2006, I flew directly from Toronto to Karachi on their Boeing 777-240LR and the plane was only about two thirds full.

About a year ago Pakistani government aviation organizations proposed taxing passengers who plan on flying to the west on gulf airliners. This may start a strong public reaction against the government and against PIA.

Possible solution:
Three extremely popular gulf airliners Gulf Air, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways (Gulf Air is not as popular as the other two) posses short to medium haul Airbus 320s equivalent to the Boeing 737s in PIA's current inventory.

An A320 of Etihad Airways:


Instead of taxing passengers who travel to western destinations through gulf airliners, the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan can impose taxation on Etihad Airways, Gulf Air and Qatar Airways if they use anything larger than their Airbus 320s for Pakistani destinations.

An A320 of Qatar Airways:


PIA in turn would most likely be slapped with similar restrictions over using anything bigger than it's B737s when flying into Doha, Bahrain or Abu Dhabi- the hubs of Qatar Airways, Gulf Air and Etihad Airways. This is okay since PIA normally uses it's 737s for these two destinations.

An A320 of Gulf Air:


Passengers flying to Europe or North America from Pakistan would most likely not take comfort in flying on such small aircraft like the A320 or the B737 and the options of different classes would be far less. A person wanting to fly in business class would easily loose his/her place on a small plane like A320 or B737.
Passengers may then prefer to fly to Europe and North America directly on PIA's wide body A310s or B777s.

A B737 of PIA. The plane behind it in the picture is a wide body Airbus 310 also of PIA:


If Etihad Airways, Gulf Air and Qatar Airways decide to pay taxes instead of flying only their A320s to profitable destinations in Pakistan, then the taxes they pay could go to PIA to make up for losses generated by these three competing airlines.

This might not be the best solution, but it's definitely an idea worth investigating.