Pakistan to appoint adviser as it privatises money-losing national airline

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will appoint an adviser to draft a plan to privatise its money-losing national airline, the caretaker government’s Privatisation Minister Fawad Hasan Fawad said on Tuesday.

The outgoing coalition government said in August that Pakistan International Airline (PIA) will be privatised together with the outsourcing of operations at three major airports.

The privatisation of PIA, a state-owned enterprise, comes after Pakistan agreed to devise a policy on such loss-making entities as part of fiscal discipline plans with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Pakistan secured a $3 billion IMF bailout in June to avert a sovereign debt default.

“We will appoint a single transaction adviser,” the minister told reporters in Islamabad, adding that the appointment will probably be finalised on Wednesday as the country’s ailing $350 billion economy could not afford further delays.

The financial adviser’s report will enable the government to take a final decision, he said.

“We’re trying our best to keep the PIA flying,” Fawad said, adding it was nevertheless a very difficult job. “No financial institution in the country has got any appetite to loan any more money to the PIA.”

He said the airline was recording yearly losses of about 156 billion Pakistani rupee ($556.96 million), adding that 15 aircraft, including six on lease, out of a fleet of 34 were grounded due to financial constraints.

The airline had accumulated over 713 billion rupee ($2.55 billion) in losses as of June 2023, the minister said. “We’re not in a position to bear it anymore,” he said.

Pakistan hopes to resume PIA flights to Britain in the next three months after services were suspended following a fake pilot scandal in 2020.

PIA flights to Europe and the UK have been suspended since then after the European Union’s Aviation Safety Agency revoked the national carrier’s authorisation to fly to the bloc following the pilot licence scandal.

The minister said that local aviation authorities had informed him that the European agency will likely visit Pakistan by the end of this year or early next year for a final safety review, which could lead to lifting the ban.