Pakistani politicians should charter PIA planes for transport

Those familiar with the politics of Pakistani aviation should know the Pakistani aviation market is not in the best condition.
But of all that, the national airline, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is in the worst financial situation and always requires a huge injection of money from the government to keep it alive.

Pakistan's politicians regularly buy airline tickets from Gulf Airliners as they offer cheaper fares than PIA.
At other times the government members use their own planes for transport.

All this is at the expense of the tax payer as far as I know and at the same time the government is spending plenty of it's budget to keep PIA alive.
So that's the combined cost of government transport as well as keeping the national airline alive.

Instead of paying for two things, the Pakistani government should take advantage of PIA's charter service.
This provides the financial advantage of giving PIA a profit at the same time not having to pay the cost of government transport planes including fuel, maintenance and crew.

If chartering PIA planes can cover the cost giving the airline a sizable income and at the same time provide transport for the government which already has it's own share of costs, two birds can be killed with one stone.

The most advantageous type of charter is going on routes already served by PIA and allowing the return flight to carry on as a normal scheduled route.
As an example, prime minister Gilani traveled to Frankfurt for a conference using the Pakistani government's Airbus 310-300 (now part of the Pakistani Air force fleet).

Instead of using the Air Force plane, Gilani and his other government officials could have charted a PIA flight to Frankfurt and allowed the plane to return to Pakistan as a regular PIA flight.

Another example is Pakistani politicians flying to Saudi Arabia for Hajj or Umrah trips. They can charter flights from PIA and allow the flights to return to Pakistan, carrying regular passengers.

Some people may object that the travel of regular people may be disrupted/delayed due to politicians chartering PIA planes.
But when people look at how much of the national budget may be saved each year, it may change their minds.

The other thing is that passengers who cannot find a seat availability on a certain date because it's taken up have to wait patiently until the next available flight(s)- and they do so without complaining.

So why in this case would one complain? If politicians have a scheduled flight to a certain destination and the date announced a months in advance, people can book their tickets accordingly.

Routes not served by PIA can be served by the government owned aircraft or served by PIA planes which are not serving on regular passenger flights, such as the Boeing 747s which are saved for hajj or high season travel.

Perhaps my proposal is not achievable and does not save costs, but as far as I can see it's a completely realistic and profitable idea.
And if it's not, then I'm sure there are other ideas to give PIA a revenue without spending so much from the national budget.

Strange conspiracy theories surrounding the Polish presidential plane crash.

I've read what seems to be a conspiracy theory on a website which claims there was no Instrument Landing System on this airforce base that the plane was due to land on.

This was a town of a few hundred thousand people. If so, then the useage of ILS is unlikely. What the conspiracy theories have also stated is that this base was in use for training fighter pilots and ask why it wouldn't have an ILS.

I'm no aviation exprert and do not have my private pilot's liscence (PPL) yet, but I have a great deal of knowledge in the field of aviation.
The use of an ILS system, is often only used in major cities of a country. If an extremly mountainious airport such as Skardu in Northern Pakistan has no ILS (atleast to my knowledge) why should people expect this base to be equipped with an ILS?

Especially when airports in Northern Pakistan are in extremly rough terrian aand require extreme skill and experience to land in. Most international pilots would never be able to land in Northern Pakistan.
Pakistani aviation laws require local certification to land in the Northern areas of the country, a region amongst the most difficult to land in.

So the question is if there's no ILS in Northern Pakistan, why should conspiracy theorists expect this airforce base to have one?

Sobotage? Unlikely. A release in the analysis of data recovered from the crash may give a clue to the cause, though some conspiracy theoirsts might reject it.

Airlines in Pakistan could possibly benifit from airshows.

The above videos are clips of an airshow in Montreal, Canada. It seems that even Canadian private airliners are participating in these aviation shows. Could the same work for Pakistan?

Pakistan's airlines, especially PIA the national airline is suffering financial problems and loosing passengers to Gulf careers.
Even their duty free products are hardly purchased on long haul flights at least from what I've seen.

Most Pakistani passengers do not seem to be interested in flying their country's airliners and usually opt for Gulf careers.
Perhaps a way to regain this interest instead of paying for advertisement, PIA can collaborate with Pakistani private airliners to organize public airshows to regain interest in the airliners and also a chance to sell off their unwanted duty free products such as posters, calendars, scale models and others.

The airshow must be paid for by those who attend, to cover operating costs by the airlines as well as gain them some profit and it could seriously generate more public interests in the airliners.

Opinions and ideas on PIA's latest livery.

Click here to see PIA's latest livery on their Boeing 777-240ER

According to reports on Pakistani Aviation forums, PIA's management opted for this livery to avoid criticism of it's provincial design and to save costs that the provincial liveries apparently produce.

PIA's claim supposedly was that the provincial tails consist of expensive stickers that were too expensive to maintain and also to replace in case of any maintainance needed on the tails.

If this is the case, I support the removal of the provincial tails, but the replacing livery should at least be creative and in good shape, which I do not see in this newly adopted livery.
This livery is in a way a repeat of PIA's livery used back in the 1980s as seen in this model photo.

Repeating a livery from an older generation is a big mistake in my opinion for an airline. Additionally, it is said that PIA has been hiring professional artists to design their latest liveries.

Not only is this a waste of money by PIA, but it also does not pay off as these liveries are very plain. There is no need to waste money on professional designers, especially when they offer lack of imagination and when the internet is filled with modified airliner photos made by enthusiast on aviation forums as well as sites like http://www.cardatabase.net/modifiedairlinerphotos/

There are countless liveries which look decorative while saving fuel and other costs at the same time.
All PIA could do is to ask aviation enthusiasts and artists to come forward and offer the best livery their imaginations can produce. In return they can be offered a prize for the winner such as a model in their livery.

It would sure save them plenty of money instead of hiring 'professional' designers who seem to lack any imagination.

Though I did not make the modified picture posted below, I strongly believe this is a much better replacement than PIA's most recently adopted livery: (click on image to enlarge)

Conservation aviation laws needed in Pakistan and the world.

For the improvement of the global environment and to conserve precious fuel, the civil aviation authorities around the world need to adopt conservation laws.

For instance in my flight school where we fly general aviation planes, the school now provides fuel testers that filter all the particles before pouring the fuel sample back into the fuel tank. Normally, fuel testers do not come in filters and the fuel samples are thrown away once checked.

On the long run this is a waste of money and fuel. If the Civil Aviation of Pakistan were to adopt a law enforcing all aircraft be inspected pre-flight using fuel testers with filters, a lot of fuel and money can be saved.

Knowing the high fuel prices Pakistan is sometimes hit with and with the heavy consumption of fuel, this can be a good measure in conservation. This law should not only be adopted in Pakistan, but world-wide.

My head of state transport planes videos

Part 1:


Part 2:

How PIA might be able to save fuel

Since fuel prices frequently skyrocket in Pakistan, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) should take measures to consume less fuel and make more profits while trying to charge lower ticket fares.
Back in 2005, Air Canada removed most of it's livery to minimize drag force on it's planes to save fuel.

According to the newspaper report this new livery with minimum colors would save them thousands of dollars each year.
Though thousands of dollars a year is an insignificant number for an airline like Air Canada or PIA, it can reduce a huge amount of losses each year.

If PIA were to take a similar measure, the best step in my opinion would be to re-adopt it's earlier livery briefly used in 2004 as pictures below.

While this livery may not be a favorite amongst civil aviation enthusiasts, it would significantly reduce fuel consumption and reduce PIA's losses over a period of years.

Usually, PIA changes it's livery about once every decade.
So if the airline kept this livery for a decade, it could save hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fuel in that time duration.

The public does complain about un-popular livery, but if this one brings down fares, the public will have little to complain about.
Many passengers will do alot for less fares, even if it means riding on crampy small planes as long as it means having to pay less.