AOOA seeks 5-year forensic tax audit of all airlines: ‘USD2.4bn in annual ticket revenue is bypassing country’s financial system’
KARACHI: The Aircraft Owners and Operators Association (AOOA) Pakistan has claimed that about USD 2.4 billion in annual ticket revenue is bypassing the country’s financial system and has urged the government to order a five-year forensic tax audit of all airlines operating in Pakistan.
In a letter to the Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, AOOA founder Imran Aslam Khan alleged that ticket sales are being settled through offshore payment gateways and remain largely invisible to tax authorities. He called on the minister to intervene urgently.
The letter puts annual ticket sales for Pakistan-linked travel at USD 3.2 billion to USD 3.6 billion. It estimates PIA’s share at about USD 750 million and other domestic carriers’ at USD 65 million, with officially recorded foreign remittances at USD 80 million to USD 411 million.
“Together these account for roughly USD 1.226 billion, leaving an unaccounted gap of USD 2 billion to USD 2.4 billion a year,” the AOOA said, adding that the real figure could be higher. It cited analyses that put the wider market at over USD 6 billion.
According to the letter, 40 to 42 scheduled airlines operate in Pakistan, including four domestic carriers and 36 to 37 foreign ones. Foreign carriers capture nearly two-thirds of international ticket revenue, it said.
The AOOA proposed restricting all ticket sales for travel to or from Pakistan to payment gateways regulated by the State Bank of Pakistan. It said the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) should draft a mechanism to collect taxes in real time through those gateways, with no exemptions. It also urged that all airlines be required to send verified passenger and sales data for every flight to the FBR electronically.
The association further recommended that the government commission the top three audit firms to run separate forensic audits of the passenger and sales taxes paid by all airlines over five years to recover any revenue shortfall.
The letter does not offer documentary evidence of non-payment of taxes and frames the issues as questions for regulators.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026