PIA’s financial woes continue, as its inability to pay for fuel forced it to cancel 24 international and domestic flights, and delay 12 others, on Thursday. This followed the cancellation of 24 flights, both international and domestic, on Tuesday and Wednesday. Those cancellations meant the loss of revenue that it should have earned. Perhaps the PSO cannot be blamed for the refusal to provide fuel to PIA, because it had run up such a huge bill. PSO is already facing pressure because of the debt run up by the power generation sector, and does not need this particular headache. This particular bind in which PIA finds itself follows the freezing of its bank accounts by the Federal Board of Revenue at the beginning of September. The stand-off was over Rs 8 billion in unpaid excise tax. PIA had welshed on a promise to pay Rs 2 billion in August; the September stand-off only ended after nearly a fortnight when PIA promised to pay Rs 2.5 billion.
Such money problems, along with huge liabilities, are not a very good advertisement for PIA which the caretaker government wants to privatize before elections. Its accumulated debt is Rs 743 billion, over five times the value of its assets, and its losses were Rs 38 billion in the first three months of 2023. Not surprisingly, much of its expenses included debt servicing. However, even as its financial woes prevent it from flying, its employees keep on receiving salaries. That is one of the problems with PIA; it is not just overloaded with employees, but they are also paid lavishly.
It is not the only problem. PIA also suffered more than most airlines during the covid-19 pandemic, which was itself a scourge for the aviation industry as well. Already in trouble, it came out of the pandemic in even worse shape. It did not help when Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan threw doubts on its pilots’ qualifications, something which led to the withdrawal of landing rights from some European airports. Pilots did not help, getting caught drunk on more than one occasion. It is a shame that what was once a national asset and a proud symbol of the country should have come to a pass where it cannot pay to stay in the sky, but it seems likely that it will now have to be gotten rid of, sold to whoever is willing to buy, because past governments used it was a cash cow rather than as a national asset to be built up.
