It’s no secret that Pakistani Media is full of ignorant people calling them journalists. And then is a separate breed of these journalists who report on aviation. And dare we say they don’t even know the A of Aviation. Recently the hell broke loose with the news that PIA has signed a code sharing agreement with Turkish Airlines. And our intelligent aviation journalist being their usual selves interpreted it, yes you are right. These ignorant souls declared it that PIA has sold the (non existent) lucrative routes to other airlines.
So PIA Spokesperson Mashood Tajwar decided to take matters in his own hands and came out denying the news published in a section of press and aired by couple of TV channels regarding PIA’s code share agreement with Turkish Airlines. He called this news totally out of context, distorted and misleading.
Then he went to educate Pakistani media on what codeshare agreements are.
“Codeshare is one of the aviation business arrangements where two or more airlines enter into agreement wherein one of them becomes Operating Carrier (OC) while the other(s) Marketing Carrier (MC). The purpose is to get additional/incremental revenue in a win-win scenario through the source from where the Contracting airlines/carriers are not in a position to earn it through their own fleet/flights.
Besides the above, another advantage of this arrangement is that airlines get their presence in the markets without any operations/cost.
Currently PIA has code share arrangements with Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, Etihad Airways and China Southern Airlines. PIA has had code share arrangement with Turkish Airlines since 2006 and its scope of work has been modified from time to time to make it beneficial from PIA’s point of view.
The latest revision took place in January 2017 according to which PIA got points in Europe (Athens, Tashkent, Amsterdam & Moscow), USA (Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, Miami, Chicago, and Houston) and Africa (Johannesburg) beyond Istanbul, while Turkish Airlines was offered Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Muscat for its passengers originating from Turkey only. This revision of code share agreement was finally approved by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority on 10th November 2017.
The spokesperson further added that in addition to the above, PIA is also carrying out a feasibility for PIA’s own operations to Turkey and final decision of which will be taken on commercial merit.
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