Well Done PIA. Keep it up to gain the Glory of your past.

This is what PIA has come down to...Lease or borrow used aircraft from a small Island nation, and have their crew operate the flights, because it cannot manage to run the airline smoothly, effectively or efficiently? It does not have capable of crew -- out of 30,000 employees -- to even run just three flights? Pathetic state of affairs. PIA might as well just shut down completely. It has been a burden on the government and tax payers, and an embarrassment to the nation with recent smuggling scandals!

So Pakistani tax money going to Sri Lanka As planes will be operated by srilanka airlines

Penny-wise, Pound-foolish ! When you do not have enough to eat yourself, you invite guests!

What? Why not use 14,000 extra employees PIA has? Oh wait, jiyalas don't believe in working.

Its like Srilanka is investing in PIA Only the name is changed other things will remain an controlled by Srilankan airlines. This shows the failure of PIA and success of sri Lankan airlines .

Excellent decision. I am sure Sri Lankan crew will be more customer friendly and business oriented. PIA should fly these on long haul routes

A sorry state of affairs for the national carier to rely on rent from Sri Lanka. Corruption in the country and hence we cannot buy our own planes! Simple is that!

And PIA is the same erstwhile proud Pakistani Airline, which helped launch the World's Best Airline for 2015 - Emirates? How things have changed!! From Hero to zero. Fallen so low to lease used aircraft from a small country like Sri Lanka. They might as well hand over the keys to India!!! Shameful state of affairs. There is not a single Pakistani brand that is able to compete anywhere in the world!!

PIA - reduced to begging for used aircraft from small third-world nations. Next, Maldives will be invited to run the Railways. Chinese will be operating Gawadar port anyway. Bus service should be handed over to the Koreans - they do a good job with Daewoo..... Ridiculous!

Instead of acquiring new aircraft either on wet or dry lease, PIA should focus on existing fleet to renovate them, repair and make airworthy. Also plug holes where extra expenditure is being utilized to make PIA a viable entity.

PIA, Steel Mill and a few others are basket-case organisations - please off-load them to private sector.....had enough of paying for the incompetencies and failures years on year....

Most of the people commenting here even don't know the meaning of "Wet Lease" and criticizing like they are Mr. Know All about aviation industry. Please help PIA to make its perception better not for PIA but for the sake of your country. For your kind knowledge volume of Pakistan's aviation industry is around 8 to 9 trillion Rupees out of which PIA is getting only 1 trillion approx due to notorious OPEN SKY POLICY. If you people want to gift the entire 9 trillion to GULF CARRIERS then,sure, shut down PIA. God Bless Pakistan as it is fastly going to be filled with lunatics.

If this service is successful, than Sri Lanka might as well start regular service from all major cities in Pakistan, and most people will prefer to travel on Sri Lankan, than PIA. 80% of the Pakistani passenger load is already absorbed by Gulf carriers. PIA is reduced to competing on domestic routes with Air Blue and Shaheen.. End of PIA as we know (or knew) it is upon us.

lets hope that its available for Gulf as well.. 90% of passengers are for Gulf but premier service is for only west bound flight... not fair

Sri Lanka did a great marketing job by leasing its aircrafts and crew to PIA. It was PIA that established Emirates Airlines once upon a time and now it has come on a verge that it has started leasing aircrafts from other country. By this time PIA was suppose to built its own aircrafts for selling the same in the international market but corruption in PIA had brought it down to its knees.

PIA's past and present is like Pakistan before and after Zia :(

I guess part of JF 17 deal

Increase flights between Dubai and Karachi. Kindly think twice abut the time before starting new flights. If flight from Dubai starts after 8:00 pm would be great for a large Pakistani community living in UAE.

@qasim How the Jiala came in to the picture..its a federal Organization not responsibility of Sindh Govt.

@Skeptic it's a business decision,cheaper than buying a new plane ,

Sometimes one of the best air lines where other countries send there pilots and crew for learning and training .... Now its opposite way ...................... The democracy system giving all assets and institutes in foreign hands.

The consequences of decades of mass corruption in almost all establishments and sectors bearing fruit, not to mention poor management and incompetency at senior levels where staff are recruited on who knows who.

Those who are criticizing just love criticizing and sarcasm. How many have travelled by a plane by the way? Not daunting but its a fact. Travel by a PIA plane & by an international plane, you will find the hell of difference. PIA needs to restore confidence of passengers & of course the best way is to provide them international standard planes & services. A good step indeed.

You better privatize it...... this is a new low!

I seriously dont understand why some people are constantly saying "small country" like Sri lanka. Guys, you need to understand...sq.kms doesnt matter for growth. Sri Lanka's GDP is far better then Pakistan's. Sri Lankan Rupee has more value then Pak Rupee. So please shut the front door and concentrate on main issue which is corruption and selecting stupid folks in PIA due to political culture.

Every time things go wrong in Pakistan nobody seems to take responsibility, buck being passed down the line till it disappears into bureaucratic muddle. There is a certain truth in what Imran Khan's insistence on deep rooted corruption in the country. India too suffers from this disease but perhaps on a lower scale. Poverty, it seems , breeds corruption.

@rehaan Correct yourself GDP & Currency far less than Pakistan, stop abusing your own country please !

$246,00 dollars a day! This is nearly $90m dollars a year. Assuming they operate one flight a day between London and Pakistan, each flight would have to not only be full but also charge more than £800 dollars per single journey ticket just to break even. The cold hard market realities would suggest this is impossible when Turkish Airlines is selling fare of less than $500 dollars return! Absolute stupidity. Instead of sorting our governance and corruption within PIA we are running around the world expensively out-sourcing the basics.

I cannot how low PIA have gone, the airline who leased Emirates its first plane is now leasing from the likes of Sri Lankan, like other elements of the glorious past, we have this one too, its sad beyond expression.

Essentially this is SLA operating with PIA masking....

@M. Malik Not a bad idea!

Nothing wrong in leading aircrafts from others airlines, but they should have signed for dry lease. Why do we need pilots and cabin crew from StiLanka? If PIA is starting Premiere service, then they should use local crew who deserve to work at PIA not who got the jobs based on favoritism and nepotism. I am sure there are some employees left in PIA who love to work there and would love to make it great again. What will happen after the wet lease ends? Planes gone, crew gone, what is PIA left with , nothing. If they use local crew with high standards, at least you have something to show at the end of the lease.

now srilanka and bangladesh are also ahead of pakistan

Slowly other roots will be outsourced to either SLA or other players and PIA will be a booking agent

Hello everyone Did some background check This deal was already in the pipe for over a month. Reason is not PIA is bad, but SriLankan airlines is out of cash due to falling off some code sharing agreements of her. Still a mystery why PIA opted for a 'wet lease' (with crew) instead of dry lease (without crew) since they already have spare staff. Appearantly 2 reason: 1- PIA staff is beyond the fixing point for any amount of customer service, ans SriLankan hopefully will be good 2- This is a no obligation lease agreement, meaning, PIA can send back as and when they start becoming a burden, like anyother PIA assets. Example, calling a taxi Vs buying a car ( Dry lease is practically a purchase financing)

By the majority of sentiments represented here, it doesn't take much stretch of the imagination for a foreign carrier to simply buy out PIA and start operating flights out of Pakistan, with entirely foreign crew. PIA could be reduced to ground operations only -- booking, check-in, baggage handling, transport, (perhaps) catering, and refueling the aircraft. It will be entirely a foreign owned and operated airline, with just the name Pakistan painted on it... Think it is far fetched!? Emirates is 99% operated by imported foreign staff, pilots, crew, engineers and even top management - which PIA helped launch in the 80s! Today, Emirates is the best run and most profitable airline in the world, because UAE government didn't allow politics to dictate the operation and hiring in the company. Pakistan did, and the results are visible to all.

Why do commenters on this article criticize PIA as an entity ? Our Pakistani brothers and sisters are to blame, we are to blame. Just like Mr Baig, Nur Khan and Omar Kureshi were honest builders of PIA. The generations after them are the destroyers of PIA. So ask yourself, what has happened to the Honesty, Integrity and Patriotism of our people ? We claim to be over religious, religion is worn on our sleeves. But yet we are the most dishonest, corrupt to the core and shameless people. We have done a fantastic job looting and plundering every State Institution. Yet we blatantly claim to be very religious and strut religion in every aspect of life.

mmmmmmmm.....I smell lots of $$$.....as commission !

Not too thrilled to hear the news. The only consolation is that we will have a courteous cabin crew.

Dear critics.. this is actually a good idea for now. A330 can be configured from 275 to 325 seats. These planes would be coming with everything. meaning PIA is only investing in the color replacement of the plane thats it. Now multiple avg $700 for 300 seats. PIA would be making $210,000 a day per plane. You take the $88000 plus fuel plus crew charges out of it. SO still PIA makes a good deal of money out of it. Pros out do the cons here: Zero investment required on planes and crew. Once PIA makes 200 million profit out of this deal, it might buy its own planes then.

Those people commentating show mentality of the people, rather then being happy that PIA is moving ahead, everyone is a critic. Take a calculator and do the maths, a single flight from Islamabad to London will cover the cost of the lease, baby steps are required by PIA, first better your image by providing a world class service, upgrade and then.......this is a step in the right direction. All those criticizing, dont use PIA, simple as that.

Where is the marketing analysis for the Islamabad-London route? What would be the load factor on these routes? why not add Karachi and Lahore for this premier service? Frankly, I am puzzled with this management decision to acquire A330 on wet-lease at $264K/day.

11 hours of flying time in a 24 hour day is half the utilization factor. Assuming a one way flying time of 7.5 hours (one way) and a 90 min time at the destination for refueling and boarding of passengers means that somebody hasn't done his numbers correct. By my reckoning it should be flying a minimum of two trips and for 15 hours with a maximum of 3 hours on the ground. The remaining six hours can be utilized on short haul domestic routes. Increase utilization PIA!

@Ijaz - It is matter of National Pride. Money does not matter here. Foreign Exchange Reserves are increasing and hence country can afford to pay. Also if Arabian airlines are allowed to Operate in a free-style manner, again there will be hue and cry.

Pretty sad we have to lease aircraft when PIA could easily become the next Turkish Airlines if there is vision and management

So PIA needs to rent aircraft as well as crew from Srilanka ?.

WOW!! the airline which gave Emirates Airline a start are asking Sri Lankan airline for help. Nice progress.

This is glorious and most proud moment for us as a Pakistani. We have started outsourcing service work.

Everybody in the comments column are critical about expenses and small country, guys please y can't we look into the revenue part which we will earn and put PIA back on track.. govt is doing the right thing by going for wet lease instead of buying.. let's see how it works if we r in profit then y not PIA will invest in buying new Airbus... let's all of us support POST

Whether you paint it Sri Lanka or write words like PIA on piece of metal. The invention will always be American. Learn to innovate and invent instead of borrowing technologies.

What glory is this---Aircraft--Sri Lanka--crew Sri Lankans--only aircraft paint PIA colour--a laughing joke !!!

so even SriLanka has better aircrafts to spare than the current PIA ones.

With all these financial losses in our PIA, we still had to send a dedicated aircraft to bring back our PM from London after his heart surgery.

This is injustice to the Pakistani Pilots, how can you provide jobs to the Pilots in Pakistan if you reduce PIA's own operations and wet-lease out operations? Also this won't be a financial success. $264,000 per day costs will be too high for PIA. Also I've observed that PIA's Islamabad - London route has not more than 70% occupancy because of tough competition from Emirates and Etihad etc.

Only cure to private owner can run this airline.

This is unbelievably bad! PIA will have to pay for the lease costs, salaries and hotel costs for the srilankan crews and maintenance of these planes. The tragedy is that we already own Boeing 777 and have trained crews. This is either criminal incompetence or else massive corruption! It should be stopped at all costs!!!

Fruits of democracy....

@Khan ... Yes Fruits of Democracy unripe, bad taste and costly.

The Sri Lankans are very happy and laughing on their way to the bank to deposit Pakistan money. We have given away too much because of our incompetence and corruption.

@Whistle_Blower Your calculation is based on that every-time there would be 300 passengers which is not true. Mostly average comes down to 150 passengers in each trip.

Tomorrow Bangladesh will give us flights...That would be nice idea ..right

@Skeptic You live in the age of dinosaurs and have no clue how the airline market works. This is the cheapest and lowest risk option for PIA to make money. Sri Lankan airline cant get fill these aircraft on the routes they fly , while PIA can. PIA can neither afford or take the liabilities that come with the outright purchase of new planes. These planes are literally newly built so PIA can put them on high load routes and expect high dispatch reliability.As for your point about foreign crew, why the hell should PIA pay for its incompetent crews cross training to a new type just to fly a few leased planes. I bet even on a wet lease these planes operated by foriegn crew are better value for money and offer a better value to PIAs bottom line than the knackered old 777s flown by the PIA pilots.

@rehaan Also Srilanka has high literacy rate (over 90%) and low unemployment. but still some people here calling it a "small island country".

@Someone It is not the wet or dry lease people are objecting to. But the entire crew from Sri Lanka which will operate the flight. That means they have to be housed, fed, paid, insured and secured much more than PIA pays for its own employees. Besides, how many cabin crew and pilots does it take to operate three flights? At most 50 per week, in rotation, especially if the flights are only being flown out of single airport to single destination. This much is elementary that even a school boy could understand...

@Someone : Thanks. You mean to say wet leasing is profitable...For whom it is 'profitable'?

A fine example of intra-Saarc regional cooperation between Sri-Lanka and Pakistan. Pakistan also trains Sri Lankan military. It is a win-win situation for both sides.

We need icons like Nur Khan to create a world class airline and instituition. Unfortunately we only have a bunch of corrupt creepy politicians and families who persist like bad smell all over the country!!

I am actually embarrassed to read this report, how can anyone in their right mind make such a deal? Than you wonder why the Pakistan Railway and PIA is losing millions daily. While the world moves forward with progress, we the Pakistan going backwards soaked in stupidity.

@citizen It is profitable for PIA here are reasons why: 1. Non low cost Airlines earn the most from business/1st passengers so you need to consider the seat configuration of these aircraft.Typically such tickets cost ~5 x economy tickets. considering 70% loadfactor (with a 20 -80 split between business and economy an average economy fare of 1300$) and just one flight daily PIA would make $ 532K on avg/ft and still easily make 100k$+ in profits. 2.PIA gets high availablity (in terms of reliability and dispatchability) new aircraft. 2. PIA get fleet flexibility and a reduction in financial risks.No collaterals are needed for leasing. 3. PIA flight crews need type training for A330 Srilankans don't. 4. Every business needs free cashflow. Leasing means PIA maintains its working capital. 5. PIA doesnt have to write off low residual values or put up with end of life /brand damaging low reliability. Overall this is still would be profitable venture compared to buying out right.

Sounds like a great deal - for the Sri Lankans.

There are 10s of private carriers in India,what about Pakistan, arnt there private airlines in Pakistan ?

@Baloch interesting, can you please elaborate this a bit more or send a pointer to online information.

@M. Malik small third word nations!!! do you know the gdp percapita and hdi rank of sri lanka? go check the internet.

@Skeptic That "small island nation" you condescendingly speak of is actually the most prosperous country in South Asia, and is probably our closest friend in the region.

Sri Lanka is thankful to PIA for taking these planes on a wet lease as their national airlines Air Lanka is in red with losses as they had leased the aircrafts at higher rates and their leaders too had taken huge kickback on these planes. PIA actually got a good deal and actually is a smart move. They can ply these planes for 11 hrs and generate more revenue per day without any capital expenditure.

@50 Shades of Khaki You only get the pilots and not the cabin crew on a wet lease

@rehaan "concentrate on main issue which is corruption" and what about terrorist?

@M. Malik Daewoo is now an Indian company taken over by Tatas...

@M. Malik Tata Daewoo is a commercial vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Gunsan, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea and a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors.

Whoever suggested "Let's change the logo on these planes and call them ours even if we don't own them or fly them", dear sir, kindly resign.

Pakistanis, Keep voting for all corrupt parties (PPP, PML-N, MQM) to get these results.

@tapish, Daewoo is owned by Tatas? since when?

A330 can hold 240 passengers. Typical occupancy at 70% implies 170 passengers. PIA will be able to operate 1 flight from Pakistan to UK. Hence cost per passenger without adding fuel charges is : 88000/170 = $510.00 add another $80 charge for fuel and food Total is $590.00. A return trip of $1180; this is a cost without any profits. SriLanka got a really good deal

Of all the countries Srilanka. Big brother , infact biggest in the world as per size of the self Inflated Ego has finally found it's current status.

PIA cannot afford to buy planes that they have to lease it from Sir Lanka. How low can we go. Pakistan cannot compete with India, China, Korea and now Sri Lanka.

@Skeptic Sad

PIA has a bloated manpower, what is the need for a wet lease? Why not dry lease, just the planes?

On the other side of the border, India aims to become the third-largest aviation market by 2020 and the largest by 2030. FDI inflow in Air transport between 200 to 2015 is more than 700 million dollars. #jealous

Premier Service for elite.. what about awaam? so are they planning a small good quality airline for few?

@V.Bhatia - Tata bought Daewoo commercial vehicle division ( Trucks) in 2004 for 102Mn.

@V.Bhatia Tata Daewoo (officially Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company) is a commercial vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Gunsan, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea and a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors. It is the second-largest heavy commercial vehicle manufacturer in South Korea. wikipedia

@Pak Patriot Your frustration is understandable but you are not in denial mode and your opinion is very truthful and honest.

@tapish No. Only Daewoo motors. Daewoo is too big for Tatas.

@RUCHIMAH - @tapish No. Only Daewoo motors. Daewoo is too big for Tatas. Dear sir/ Madam- Daewoo is a Bankrupt company, while TATA Group is a $108 Billion Indian conglomerate