Pakistan International Airlines will resume its flight operations to Oman after the seven-day long strike by PIA employees partially ended on Tuesday.
Pakistan International Airlines will resume its flight operations to Oman after the seven-day long strike by PIA employees partially ended today, reported Pakistani media.
A PIA flight from Lahore landed in Multan on Tuesday, signalling the end of a deadlock between the government and the national carrier’s employees protesting against its planned privatisation.
“We are expecting a PIA flight from Islamabad tomorrow (Wednesday), which is scheduled to depart at 11:30 pm and arrive in Muscat at 1:40 am. The same flight will then depart at 2:40 pm,” confirmed Shahzad Paracha, country manager,PIA Oman.
“We were actually due to receive a flight from Sialkot today and I had received its movement plan too, but it was cancelled due to a technical problem, which may have happened largely because of six days of non-operations,” added Paracha.
PIA Oman claims to have been helping its stranded passengers catch flights on other airlines even if that meant purchasing new tickets for its customers.
Breaking the news, daily Jung website reported yesterday that the PIA Joint Action Committee and the Government of Pakistan had arrived at a mutual decision to end the stalemate and a formalannouncement was expected in the next 24 hours.
PIA Workers Unions has called for a countrywide strike on February 2 when three protesting workers were killed in clasheswith Karachi Police, leading to the grounding of all domestic and international flights.
Earlier, media reports quoted PIA spokesman Daniyal Gilani as saying,“flights have restarted and workers are coming back to join their duties.”
“Eighteen flights of the national flag carrier have reached their destinations since the resumption of flight operations,” said Gilani, and added that two PIA flights camefrom Saudi Arabia, bringing back stranded pilgrims.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif welcomed the workers who have resumed work.