PIA's CNG powered aircraft

Some 30 new CNG powered aircraft will join Pakistan International Airlines fleet by 2020, bolstering its current fleet to 70.

PIA General Manager for Public Affairs, Syed Sultan Hasan said, “most probably first of the additions to the national carrier will be in 2012 and this may be a CNG Boeing.”

Initially 30 new CNG planes will be acquired on a five-year lease, the PIA  official said, elaborating that this deal includes an option to buy the same. With the option to buy later the plan is conceived to be cost-effective.

Balochis will be robbed of their natural resource and the Shamsi Airbase will be made a CNG refueling airbase. He said that PIA planes will refuel their CNG engines when regular consumer CNG stations will be shut in cities of Pakistan. He said that

He said the government has approved an over all outline for the scheme and PIA was presently engaged in working out modalities to get the plan materialised.

“The idea is to turn PIA profitable with focus on cost cutting measures, in each and every respect, without compromising quality,” he said in reply to a question.

To another query, he the concept has already been approved and the specifications are being worked out.

“The plan is scheduled to be completed by 2020,” said PIA’s GM, Public Affairs.

A flying CNG pump will also be launched for refueling in the air.

Karachi METRO BUS Service

The MetroBus was one of the earlier public transport revamps that the city witnessed. It came after the ‘coach’ services that were supposed to replace the aging and hopeless ‘mini buses’ but instead become a dreaded class of their own. When Metrobuses first appeared almost over a decade ago, they quickly become the first choice for office-goers in Karachi that must use the public transport.

In their initial days, the buses sported a uniformed pair of driver and the ticket collecting conductor. The catch phrase for the new service at that time was, as we all remember, ‘seat-by-seat’. The vehicles used to be air-conditioned and the new, simple but attractive color scheme (in the back-drop of the multi-colored, ‘chamak patti’ ridden minibuses) was an immediate hit with the people who wanted to pay a few extra rupee for a sensible ride to their workplaces.

But things changed fast. The rising city population and the persistent absence of a much needed mass transit system of any kind, the business heads behind these buses, apparently, realized it early on that with the existing demand of a moving vehicle (let alone a ‘service’), these ‘attraction overheads’ are actually not needed. First, the make-shift seats appeared in the middle passage. The air-conditioners went faulty and were never repaired. The color of the vehicle and the dents and damages attracted over time were conserved as a memorable collectible lot. The uniforms were gone and the air-gymnastic conductor of the minibus found their way into the supposed saner Metrobus.

Today, the sight of a Metrobus on the roads of Karachi remains a painful reminder of how subsequent transport revamping schemes for this mega-city has failed and how difficult it remains for the general public to reach their workplace for an affordable cost in a reasonable way.

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