KARACHI: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is pressing Boeing to accelerate delivery of at least five of the 16 787 Dreamliner aircraft it plans to acquire, with the US manufacturer now expected to deliver the first batch in the first half of next year, two company shareholders told Arab News on Saturday.
The details emerged after PIA’s new management and Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi visited Boeing’s headquarters in Washington this week, where Naqvi and Boeing Global President Brendan Nelson agreed to finalize “the best deal as soon as possible” for the acquisition of 16 new aircraft, according to Pakistan’s interior ministry.
“The issue is related to the timing of the aircraft delivery,” a PIA stakeholder told Arab News on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. “The PIA wants the delivery to be fast. And the timeline they [Boeing officials] have is a little distant.”
“The transaction is for 16 aircraft, and we are asking for five deliveries,” he added.
Another shareholder in PIA said the airline had pushed Boeing to bring forward deliveries from its original schedule.
“The PIA management was asking for the delivery of five aircraft now, immediately,” the stakeholder told Arab News, seeking anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
“Boeing initially wanted to give the delivery in 2028,” he said. “But now it appears that they would deliver the first five aircraft at the beginning of 2027.”
He added the US manufacturer had “agreed to make the delivery during the January-June period.”
The early induction of the aircraft would significantly expand the airline’s international operations, according to the shareholder.
“The induction of five new Boeing 787 aircraft will activate almost all of PIA’s routes,” he continued, naming Canada and other international destinations.
PIA currently flies to more than 25 international destinations, including London, Dubai, Beijing and Riyadh, according to the airline’s website.
Its fleet comprises Boeing 777 wide-body aircraft, Airbus A320 narrow-body aircraft and ATR42-500 and ATR72-500 turboprops.
The stakeholder said the Boeing 787 was the manufacturer’s most advanced aircraft and was “much better than the 777.”
Pakistan privatized PIA in December after an Arif Habib Corporation-led consortium agreed to acquire a 75 percent stake in the airline for Rs135 billion ($482 million) in a deal that valued the carrier at Rs180 billion ($643 million). The airline had accumulated more than $2.8 billion in losses before the sale.
The new management plans to more than triple PIA’s fleet to 64 aircraft from the current 19 over about eight years as part of efforts to revive the national carrier.
PIA is also in the process of appointing former Ethiopian Airlines chief Tewolde Gebremariam as its new chief executive officer, according to two officials who spoke to Arab News last week.
“PIA would not announce his name until all the security clearances are completed,” one of them said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
PIA spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez Khan was not immediately available for comment on the proposed aircraft delivery timeline.
