PIA to Dry Lease Narrow-body and Turboprop Aircraft

[boeing787]

How many a320 is PIA getting? The tender is for 10, 16 were submitted and PIA already has two or three from another tender.

[Abbas Ali]

^ Three dry leased A320s (aircraft registrations AP-BLB, AP-BLC & AP-BLD) delivered under another bidding invitation.

Three dry leased A320s (aircraft registrations AP-BLA, AP-BLV & AP-BLW) delivered under bidding invitation discussed in this topic.

Seven more dry leased A320s due to be delivered to PIA under this bidding invitation.

PIA will have a total of thirteen dry leased A320s after the completion of aircraft deliveries.

Abbas

[Abbas Ali]

PIA Airbus A320 registration AP-BLW has begun performing revenue flights for the airline.

The aircraft today departed from Karachi as flight PK-350 to Peshawar.

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/ap-blw

AP-BLW had arrived in Karachi on May 21 on its delivery flight from Prague.

Abbas

[Moin]

I wonder if there is a retro livery in the works...........................

[faiq]

As more A320 get delivered and the A320 fleet reaches figure of 13 with 5 ATR72 relaxing the use of A320s on non trunck routes, I can fore see PIA restarting Karachi Bangkok, Lahore Bangkok, Quetta Dubai, Faisalabad Dubai. Increasing Abu-Dhabi connectivity from Major cities like Lahore Karachi Islamabad.

[Abbas Ali]

Thumbs up! Anyone with pictures?

On following link is photo of PIA Airbus A320-214 registration AP-BLA in livery of previous operator CSA - Czech Airlines departing from Prague Airport on May 22, 2015, as delivery/ferry flight PK-7704 to Karachi.

http://www.planes.cz/en/photo/1208185/a ... e-prg-lkpr

Abbas

[Sahil Ali]

Thank you Abbas bhai. Next A320 is AP-BLS. InshAllah.

[boeing787]

So we've AP-BLA, BLB, BLC, BLD. Then why BLV and BLW? Why not just continue with BLE and BLF?

The A320s started with B, C and D and only recently was A added.

[iTechno8]

So we've AP-BLA, BLB, BLC, BLD. Then why BLV and BLW? Why not just continue with BLE and BLF?

The A320s started with B, C and D and only recently was A added.

AP-BLE, AP-BLF & AP-BLG are already registered B737-33A's belonging to Air Indus.

[boeing787]

^ thanks i never thought of that.

Shaheen has taken up to AP-BLN (Excluding "L"). Perhaps PIA should have gone for which allowed AP-B*A-Z instead for A-320s. I never understand how they come up for naming scheme for registration. For example, why not AP-A instead of AP-B. Airblue uses AP-E**

[Abbas Ali]

^ Pakistan aircraft registration begins with prefix 'AP-' followed by a group of three letters/alphabets (AP-***).

Pakistani aircraft registration began with AP-AAA in 1947 and since then registrations have been issued or reserved/booked in advance in sequence apparently on first-come, first-served basis.

Pakistani aircraft registrations already issued to an aircraft in the past cannot be issued to another aircraft.

Some years ago, Pakistan CAA also allowed aircraft owners/operators to get customised registrations for their aircraft and airblue aircraft registrations in AP-ED* series like for example AP-EDA are customised registrations. Apparently airblue chose AP-ED* series when 'ED' was that airline's two-letter IATA code.

Abbas

[mac777]

good to learn that the delivery pace is picking up and that the a320 are being put into service quite fast.
i would find it more logical to register all the ex- czech airlines a320 from bls instead of adding a lone one to the ex-china eastern lot as ap-bla.
in my opinion most of the new additions should remain in 180 all economy config, with business class only in a select few eg ap-bla to ap-bld

[boeing787]

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=264467

"The airline now has five A320 aircraft while eight more A320 Narrow body aircraft will be added to PIA fleet by June- July, 2015. Furthermore, out of five ATR-72 aircraft being leased, two ATR-72 aircraft have already been added to the fleet while the remaining will be included shortly. PIA has also floated tender for three Wide body aircraft for inclusion in the airline’s fleet. He said that with the inclusion of fuel efficient, narrow body aircraft, the airline’s operations are improving; enabling further efficiency, better control on fuel cost and PIA’s regularity. These aircraft will be deployed on domestic as well as short haul international routes, he concluded."

So by July we should have all A320s! Hopefully we get all ATRs as well. So for Umra and Hajj, the A320s can do KHI-ISB/KHI-LHE route while b777 do Jeddah instead of said routes. Now Umra visa is only two weeks, so that means more passengers for PIA. Also because of Makkah expansion, there will be more pilgrims due to higher amount of visa given by the Saudi gov't.


Also I think it would be nice to have a flight between KHI-ISB every 4 hours for total of 6 daily flights instead of using odd times with A310s, b777s and a320s. Just have 2 a320s permanetly doing this route alone with 180 eco class. 2 hour flight doesn't need business class and at most PIA can just sell first two rows with empty seat in-between as eco plus maybe.

[talhamala]

^due to expansion of Masjid this time saudi gov.limited the Umrah visa. [-o<

[Abbas Ali]

good to learn that the delivery pace is picking up and that the a320 are being put into service quite fast.
i would find it more logical to register all the ex- czech airlines a320 from bls instead of adding a lone one to the ex-china eastern lot as ap-bla.
in my opinion most of the new additions should remain in 180 all economy config, with business class only in a select few eg ap-bla to ap-bld

Apparently registrations AP-BLA, AP-BLB, AP-BLC & AP-BLD were originally reserved for A320s that PIA had plans to acquire on dry lease in year 2013.

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Abbas