Fokker F-27 Versus Public Opinion

[Amaad Lone]

The airline can't stop explaining to us that PIA fokkers are safe and airworthy aircraft.

PIA says that these planes are yet to reach 90,000 hours at which point they will be grounded.

They say an aircraft is never old, as parts keep getting overhauled and replaced, keeping the aircraft fit for flying.

But here is the main question.

HOW WILL PIA CONVINCE ITS PASSENGERS TO BOARD THESE PLANES.

I predict that load factor on the fokker flights will crash to a few brave souls, forcing PIA to ground these 40+ year old aircraft.

The public is weary of the fokkers, and seriously believe that these planes should be grounded.

In my opinion, rather then lose money by operating empty fokker flights PIA should wet lease around 4-5 ATR42/Fokker-50 for six months to operate on routes which cannot handle a 737-300.

Routes such as: Lahore-Islamabad-Lahore, Lahore-Multan-Lahore
Lahore-Peshawar-Lahore, which still get F.27 flights should be upgraded to 737s only.

Or any city pair which can handle a Boeing 737 flight, should be changed from an F.27 to 737. Even if means leasing a couple 737-300s to handle the extra load.

This crash has totally killed passenger confidence in the F.27 operations, and if PIA does not ground them, it will only lose more money by operating them empty.

[Moin]

Are you saying that till these a/c reach 90K hours, they'll keep using them alongside the ATR's? Talk about squeezing every drop of juice out of them.

Once all the 7 ATR's arrive, these a/c should be grounded irrespective of how many hours they have completed or not. With the arrival of each ATR, 1 F-27 should be pulled out of service thereby rendering a smooth transition to the new a/c.

[raihans]

HOW WILL PIA CONVINCE ITS PASSENGERS TO BOARD THESE PLANES.

Situation can become more critical as Ammad has pointed out; who will board the F27 flights....PIA is spending a lot of money on keeping this aging fleet airworthy and if no one will fly on these flights then it will be big loss to PIA to keep them flying....

Better to keep them in PIA Planitariums for PIA / Aviation enthusiasts.

[ammad]

After this incident one of My freind Working in NCR call centre told me that there is heavy cancellation of Seat of on all PIA fokker Flights on complete netowrk

[Unbiased Flyer]

I will because when death is written, it will come whether you'r flying in the safest airline in the world or in 70 years old DC-3

[Abbas Ali]

Fokker travel falls drastically

By Shahid Hussain

LAHORE: Passenger travel on PIA Fokker flights drastically went down on Thursday due to the fear of plane’s performance.

The Fokker flight PK-621 scheduled from Lahore to Bahawalpur at 07:00, took off with only five passengers against the seating capacity of 40, PK-622 from Lahore to Islamabad carried only 13 passengers. PK-623, from Lahore to Multan, had 25 passengers and PK-610 from Lahore to Peshawar at 16:00 had maximum of 34 passengers in the plane. The Fokker flight PK-616 flight scheduled from Dera Ghazi Khan to Lahore, was cancelled due to bad weather condition.

Source: The News