According to a report in December 24 edition of Urdu daily 'Express':
PIA is going to end Business Class on Europe and UK flights. The fare for these flights will also be reduced by thirty percent. The Business Class seats will be replaced by Economy Plus seats.
Bookings will be made for Economy Plus seats instead of Business Class seats after January 15.
The step will help in increasing the number of Economy Plus passengers and airline's revenue.
This is nothing new. PIA has not been selling business class for a few months now for UK routes. The tickets have been sold as Premieum Economy although the business cabin has been used for this. Unless now they are planning on changing the cabin and seats etc.
Unfortunately the business class PIA was selling / offering was not actually business class,
If the seats are not changed, and the current Business Class seats are marketed & sold as Executive Economy, does that mean that passengers still get all the Business Class perks or not?
If the seats really are not changed and everything is maintained, only the price is reduced, what benefit does this serve?
"A mile of highway will take you a mile. A mile of runway will take you anywhere."
Ammar wrote: ↑Wed Dec 26, 2018 4:23 pm
If the seats are not changed, and the current Business Class seats are marketed & sold as Executive Economy, does that mean that passengers still get all the Business Class perks or not?
If the seats really are not changed and everything is maintained, only the price is reduced, what benefit does this serve?
Not sure what other 'perks' business class serve except different and premium meals. By marketing as economy plus and giving much elevated economy class, this cabin would be filled more often than when it was sold as 'business'. Maybe someone did the calcultions and proved that by filling these seats more often at lower price is still profitable or at least breakeven than selling less of these business class.
Once you have tasted flight, you will ever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward - Leonardo Da Vinci
BEIJING - Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Country Manager to China, Hong Kong, and Macau, Nasir Jamal Malik said on Thursday that the airline has converted its business class into "business executive class" to further facilitate customers.
The fare has been reduced while service is being provided at par with the business class, he told APP.
There are now two kinds of premium economy layouts on the 777 fleet. They are 2-4-2 and 2-3-2. Most airlines for premium economy are doing 2-4-2 with seat pitch of 38 inches versus 32 for regular economy. Very few airlines are doing 2-3-2 and i just saw a review on the China Airlines A350 and they had 2-3-2 premium economy layout. PIA was probably forced to convert the business class to premium economy because no one was probably flying PIA in club and most airlines are now using 1-2-1 layout in club.
PIA is really far behind the world and without government giving them 40 billion a year PIA would not survive. Now under the new IMF package you will see the handouts to PIA disappear or decrease dramatically. That is why now instead of handing out money to PIA the government is directly paying banks the 24 billion a year in interest payments under the debt servicing section. Kind of cheating the IMF.
PIA Should return leased BMG BMH BHX and BMS and instead pick up long modern long haul aircraft like the 787-900 with proper IFE system and relaunch New York with that and maybe even move Toronto to that. Four new planes can give PIA good frequency to London and North American flights.
