PIA Ready for Revival with Expected Leased Aircrafts

Pakistani people are well aware of the situation of its national airline and what is has been going through in the past few years. However, after taking a nosedive the most impressive airline of the country in the past is now ready to revive and become the best airline of the country again. The revival is being made possible with the leasing of new airplanes on wet and dry lease basis.

10 aircrafts will be leased by the airline on the basis of dry lease whereas 8 planes will be added to the inventory through wet lease. The difference between the two types of leases is that the dry lease is the acquiring of the planes only and no crew, equipment or staff accompanies the lease. On the other hand the wet lease is accompanied with crew, equipment and the ground staff too.

The planes that will be acquired by the airline through dry lease are to be added to the fleet by July 30, 2014. These planes will be narrow bodied but will have enough capacity to carry 150-plus passengers on them. The aircrafts will be leased through bidding process that will take place in Karachi and the beginning of the bids will take place from March 7, 2014. Another important part of the contract is that all the planes purchased must not be the makes before the year 2010. In short, the oldest planes on the fleet can be only 4 years old.

Through wet lease PIA will add 8 aircrafts to the fleet and combined, these two leases will contribute to the revival of Pakistan’s first international airline. The issuance of tender notices of the wet lease aircrafts means that the planes will start coming into the stock of the airline starting from March 15. The acquiring of planes through wet lease will take place until the end of October. By the end of the acquisition process there will be 8 additional aircrafts in the fleet through wet lease.

The planes that are being brought in through wet lease are the makes of 2000 and following years. It means that these aircrafts cannot be older than 14 years. These are rather smaller aircrafts with a capacity of few more than 140 passengers.

The revival process of PIA started when the government has already announced that 26 percent of the shares of the airline will be sold as the end of the current year approaches.