ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered aviation authorities to restructure the cash-strapped national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is making losses worth USD 3.68 million per month, according to an official statement.
Khan said this while presiding over a meeting on the aviation sector on Monday in the backdrop of the recent Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane crash in Karachi that claimed 98 lives.
The flag carrier’s Chief Executive Arshad Malik apprised the PM of the strategies to be worked out regarding the reorganisation of the national airline, during a meeting on reforming and restructuring PIA, according to a statement from the PM’s office.
This also includes how to improve the “financial discipline” of the company, the efficient utilisation of the company’s assets, and “other related matters”.
Khan told the meeting that the country is suffering due to Covid-19 and the present situation demands that the reform and reorganisation of the national carrier, which is losing billions of rupees a month, be expedited.
He added that “special attention” should be paid to reduce PIA’s expenses, increase its revenue and financial resources, and upgrade its aircraft. Special attention should also be paid to “the best use of domestic and foreign assets owned by PIA through a clean and completely transparent procedure so that these assets do not become a further burden on the people”.
Malik said PIA is facing a monthly deficit of about PKR6 billion ($36.5 million), while yearly expenditure on the salaries of the airline’s 14,000 employees alone is PKR24 billion.
He added that the person holding the top position at the carrier has been changed 10 times in the last 12 years, and in his 16-month tenure as current chief executive, he was unable to work for almost three due to court cases.
“The prime minister was informed that due to these reasons, the process of institutional reform has been severely affected,” the statement said.
Malik also briefed Khan on the progress of the investigation into the 22 May crash of PIA Flight 8303, operated with a GECAS-leased Airbus A320, that killed 97 of 99 passengers and crew. Malik’s briefing included details, which were not specified in the statement from the prime minister’s office.
Other attendees of the meeting, which took place at an unstated date, were minister for aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan, federal minister for information and broadcasting Shibli Faraz, advisor for institutional reforms and austerity Ishrat Hussain, special assistant lieutenant general Asim Saleem Bajwa, and “other senior officials.”
