PIA flight schedule suffers due to non-availability of spare parts

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight schedule was severely hit after it had been forced to ground 16 aircraft out of a fleet of 38 due to the non-availability of spare parts.

The loss-incurring airline also decided to terminate an agreement with a Gulf-based company at a recent meeting of the board of directors after the company failed to provide spare parts on time, which forced the airline to ground nearly 40 per cent of its fleet and upset its entire schedule.

With the grounding of such a large number of aircraft, PIA now has only 22 operational planes in its fleet, forcing it to cancel or suspend hundreds of scheduled flights to local and foreign destinations besides facing immense financial losses.