Sunday, February 20, 2011

How PIA could possibly take advantage of American aid and modernize it's fleet

Since the American administration is trying to improve Pakistan's infrastructure through aid programs in return for getting Pakistani support for the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and the Pakistani government should try and take advantage of the program.

The Pakistani government could try to include PIA's fleet modernization as part of the aid package and request the Obama administration to put Boeing in direct touch with PIA officials to lease new generation Boeing 737s to PIA.
It is doubtful Boeing will put up newer planes for lease, but under the influence of the America government, they might go out of their way and strike a long-term contract with PIA.

As most readers may know, PIA's narrow body Boeing 737s are extremely outdated as they were inducted in 1985-1886.
Also what most readers may know that PIA is in no financial position to purchase newer aircraft at this stage so the best option for fleet modernization is leasing new planes on long-term contracts instead of buying them.

There were also talks with Boeing of inducting newer generation Boeing 737-800s and a Boeing artists impression was released as it is done traditionally when airlines consider newer aircraft as seen here and here.

Getting long term deals is in the best interests of PIA as a long term lease can be the equivalent of a quarter or even sometimes half the lifetime of a purchased plane.

Though PIA's Boeing 737s need modernization badly, the Airbus 310s will also need to be eventually replaced and the best alternates would be Boeing 777s or Airbus 330s.
But since Pakistan is currently in a political and economical partnership with America, it enjoys a lot of aid programs from that country, which is why the government and PIA should take advantage of the aid programs and try to seek newer Boeing substitutes for it's older planes.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Modified image of AP-001

My own livery of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) VIP transport plane registered AP-001. I tried to add an Urdu script alongside the English titles but unfortunately the software I used doesn't seem to recognise non-Latin script. (click on image to enlarge)