Every civilian government in Pakistan for the last few decades has claimed that they will turn Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) around and it will once again start making money and be a profitable enterprise. That has yet to happen.
The latest statement by the Imran Khan government, as an Editorial in Daily Times pointed out, “should be taken with more than a pinch of salt. There is nothing so far to show any structural overhaul of the national flag carrier, and while it is still reeling from a succession of humiliating setbacks it would be too much to expect simply a return to previous fleet employment to do wonders for its finances.”
We must remember that PIA aircraft were “banned from entering European airspace failing a complete safety audit of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), one of its planes was seized at Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia its lease wasn’t paid for some reason, and nobody can forget how the aviation minister created so much controversy about its pilots’ flying licenses.”
Like other state owned enterprises, PIA has been “hemorrhaging billions upon billions for years now.” The PIA “has a negative equity of Rs460 billion, after all, which comprises loans worth Rs326 billion and other payables of Rs118 billion.”
As of now the so-called “turnaround plan” has failed to look at “service delivery, safety, and flight operations” which is critical and till that happens, any talk of PIA turning around, that too during a once-in-a-lifetime epidemic, is only a pipe dream.
