Pakistan Airline Strike Grounds Passengers across Country

Gilani said PIA is in final stages of negotiations with Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines to facilitate passengers booked to travel internationally.

Bloomberg called PIA the world’s least productive and most overstaffed airline, saying each of its 15,000 full-time workers earns the airline 61,000 rupees (£400, $585) a year, the lowest among 72 carriers tracked by the news agency.

PM Sharif slammed that in spite of the enforcement of Essential Services Act in PIA some political parties are still backing the striking workers.

Major Pakistan airports remained crippled by industrial action on Friday as a strike by employees of the national flag carrier against plans to privatise the airline entered its fourth day. A PIA spokesman earlier said that most people had cancelled their bookings because of reports about the strike.

Gilani said agreement had been reached with rival airlines to fly all domestic and worldwide passengers.

A strike by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees has turned violent and resulted in the carrier losing track of how many and where passengers are waiting for their flights.

National airline’s employees say they will continue protests until their demands are met.

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The losses are due to grounding of the entire fleet of PIA and costs due to accommodating passengers with valid tickets at hotels and arranging other airlines to transport them.

As demonstrations against privatisation plans continued for the third day in many cities, PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani told Dawn online over 150 flights have been cancelled in the past three days of the strike.

The government owns a 92 percent stake in PIA and the employees own 3.9 percent. Expressing his deep sorrow over tragic deaths of two PIA employees during protest in Karachi, the minister said that a committee has been constituted to probe into the incident.