Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has been working on a comprehensive strategic business plan 2018-22, expected to be formulated by mid 2019, with the objective of restructuring the national flag carrier to turn it into a profitable entity, the source further revealed. Mashhood Tajwar, PIA spokesperson, however told Business Recorder that the airline has not finalized its accounts for financial year 2017-18 and the actual loss cannot be shared.
He further said the government has extended a 17 billion sovereign guarantee against which PIA can take more loans. Tajwar further said that the PIA has to pay up to Rs 2 billion markup per month on loans; and added that PIA is working towards partly returning payables to Civil Aviation Authority, Federal Board of Revenue and Pakistan Stock Exchange, etc.
On November 2018, the federal government pledged to raise Rs 17.022 billion to meet PIA's financial obligations as it had become difficult for PIA to continue operations without government's financial support. The relevant senate standing committee was apprised that PIA was suffering from overstaffing and had 13,500 regular employees and 3,500 daily wagers and the ratio of workers per aircraft stood at a high of 450.
According to the aviation secretary, if non-core staff from engineering, catering and ground handling crew were separated from core employees, the ratio of workers against one aircraft would decrease to 135, which would be similar to India.
The engineering section alone caters to more than 4,000 employees and senate standing committee members were informed that its employees had not received their salaries this month because of PIA's financial woes. The federal Cabinet is expected to approve new members for the board of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to assist in turning PIA around during its meeting scheduled Thursday (today).
The Khan administration has decided to depoliticize PIA which had been running like a non-business entity, governed by non-professional Board of Directors (BODs), and managed by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) lacking industry-specific experience, sources in PTI told this correspondent. On October 26, 2018, Air Marshal Arshad Malik (former Vice Chief of the Air staff) took over charge as president and CEO of PIA.
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