PIA after privatisation: fix the airline before dressing it up

Ten of Pakistan’s leading fashion designers recently came together to present their visions for a new uniform for Pakistan International Airlines. The initiative was impressive in scale and presentation.

There is nothing inherently wrong with giving PIA a new visual identity. Uniforms matter. They contribute to brand identity, employee pride and the passenger’s perception of an airline. But such initiatives are most powerful when they reflect a transformation that passengers can already see and experience.

For a newly privatised airline emerging from years of financial and operational difficulty, there is a more fundamental question:

Is this the priority right now?

Our national pride, PIA, as we all know, has never really faced criticism over the design of its crew uniforms. What has dwindled over the years is not the appeal of the uniform, but the image of the airline itself—and that decline has been driven by far more fundamental operational and commercial issues.

PIA today has challenges in airline economics, operational efficiency, fleet utilisation, product reliability and, perhaps most importantly, customer confidence. Against this backdrop, the immediate challenge facing the new management is changing how the airline operates and not the crew uniforms.

The turnaround must begin with priorities

Privatisation has given PIA something it has not enjoyed for decades: an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the business without many of the constraints associated with state ownership. That opportunity should not be confused with an invitation to spend. Successful airline turnarounds are generally built around discipline: disciplined capacity, disciplined costs, disciplined capital allocation and disciplined execution. Every rupee invested during the initial restructuring period should therefore face a simple test:

Will this expenditure help PIA fly more reliably, utilise its aircraft better, reduce its unit costs, improve revenue, strengthen the passenger proposition or build capabilities essential to the turnaround? If the answer is no, management should at least ask whether the expenditure can wait.

Think like a 20-aircraft airline, not a 100-aircraft airline

One of the most important decisions being taken by the new management will be recruitment. Bringing experienced Pakistani aviation professionals from successful international airlines can be extremely valuable. But there is also a risk that deserves attention.

An executive accustomed to working inside an airline operating 100, 200 or 300 aircraft may have been surrounded by sophisticated systems, large departments, substantial technology budgets and extensive specialist resources. PIA today is a very different organisation. The challenge is therefore not simply to recruit people who understand world-class airlines.

PIA needs people who understand how to build one from a constrained starting point.

Those are different skills. A solution that makes economic sense for a 150-aircraft fleet may be unnecessary for an airline operating only a fraction of that. Enterprise platforms, consulting programmes, organisational structures and technology architectures can quickly become over-engineered if they are imported wholesale from much larger airlines. PIA cannot afford transformation through imitation. It needs transformation through right-sizing.

The question management should repeatedly ask vendors, consultants and its own executives is not; “What do the world’s leading airlines have?”

It should be: “What does PIA actually need at its present scale, and what measurable business problem will this investment solve?” Aircraft utilisation comes before aesthetics.

Reliability should become PIA’s first brand campaign

This is where marketing needs to be reconsidered. Fashion shows generate visibility. But PIA’s immediate marketing challenge is not primarily awareness.

Pakistanis already know PIA, and so does the international aviation community, owing to the airline’s rich and vibrant history and its longstanding legacy as Pakistan’s national carrier. The challenge is trust.

The most powerful marketing campaign PIA can run over the next two years would therefore not necessarily begin with advertising. It would begin with operational performance. Instead of merely telling passengers that there is a “new PIA”, management should progressively give them evidence of one. Imagine a campaign built around measurable improvements: That is marketing backed by operational reality. For an airline recovering from reputational damage, performance itself becomes the brand.

A recent example highlights the importance of reputation management. Former Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam, reportedly considered to lead PIA’s turnaround, was subsequently appointed CEO of Air India. Some International and Indian media portrayed the development unfavourably for PIA, yet there was little visible communication from the airline to manage the narrative. At this critical stage, PIA’s marketing must go beyond brand imagery and events—it must actively protect and rebuild the airline’s reputation.

What should success look like?

The first objective should be much simpler. PIA should become a smaller, reliable, commercially disciplined and consistently profitable airline. Once that foundation exists, growth can follow.

There is something symbolically powerful about a new uniform representing a new beginning. Perhaps that is exactly what PIA’s management intends. But symbols become powerful only when they represent something real.

The greatest marketing opportunity available to the new owners is therefore not to convince Pakistan that PIA has changed. It is to change PIA—and allow passengers to discover the difference themselves. Ten designers can create a new uniform. The much harder task for PIA’s new leadership is to create the airline worthy of wearing it.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026