Pakistan International Airlines- a crumbling fort burying hopes and plans

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has been hit by the worst crisis of all time. PIA has not been able to keep up with the schedule due to grave fuelling issues leading to the cancellation of hundreds of flights.

What is the matter about

It starts with PLA not being able to pay dues of fuel to Pakistan State Oil (PSO), the company that supplies fuel to PIA. Pakistan State Oil(PSO) is another state-owned company that is also a member of the World Economic Forum. It stores, imports, and distributes petroleum products.

Owing to unpaid dues, PSO disrupted the operations of PIA by cutting fuel supply leaving the airlines in a helpless situation.

The disrupted fuel supply led to the cancellation of more than 300 flights. According to Dawn, (a popular Pakistani Newspaper), a total of 322 flights were cancelled since October 14.

Among these 134 were scheduled on International routes. The cancellation of flights caused major discomfort to passengers who planned their journey.

Cancelled flights of Pakistan International Airlines

Thousands of Pakistani Nationals and others have been suffering due to unpaid dues by the state-owned airline, PIA. On October 22, around 77 flights were cancelled which included international and domestic flights. On October 17 and 18, 24 flights including domestic and international flights were cancelled per day.

Passengers are left with no choice but to either wait or look for seats on other airlines as PIA was not able to give appropriate answers to passengers. The spokesperson apologised for the discomfort and said that the airline was working on accommodating the passengers on other flights.

On October 20, the PIA assured that flight operations were to be normalised as 48 flights were scheduled to take off on Friday. Out of these 48 flights, 32 were to run on international routes and 16 on domestic routes.

The spokesperson also informed that October 19 was a normal day as 52 flights took off.

According to Dawn, flight operations were normalised for the time as PIA was able to arrange the funds from internal sources. On October 22, the operations were again highly disturbed with 77 flights cancelled.

Economic Crisis spilled over airline operations

According to reports, the central government of Pakistan is planning to sell off Pakistan International Airlines as the loss-making business is getting difficult to take ahead.

Pakistan International Airlines is suffering losses of 750 billion Pakistani rupees.

In September, the Privatisation Commission of Pakistan agreed to a clear timeline for the privatisation of PIA in a meeting. The details of the timeline are not provided yet, but it is clear that the Pakistani Government is determined to sell off the loss-making entity.

The country is just trying to get out of the worst economic crisis it has faced. Pakistan has been gearing up for the election, meaning that the political atmosphere of the country is also going to get warmer. Amid all of these things, PIA was hit by one of the worst situations which the PIA employees themselves call  "situation was never this bad".

The Pride of Pakistan coming down

Pakistan International Airlines has been the pride of Pakistan, one of the things which Pakistanis were proud to have. It has the flag of Pakistan painted on its body resulting in calling the airlines as the 'national flag carrier'. Like many things, PIA had its origin in India when it was founded in Calcutta, British India, on 26 October 1946 with the name "Orient Airways". It then shifted its operation to the newly formed Pakistan in 1947. Orient Airways was then nationalised and renamed as Pakistan International Airlines Corporation(PIAC).

At present, it comes under the administrative control of the Secretary to the Government of Pakistan for aviation. The central hub of PIA is at the Jinnah International Airport, Karachi and the secondary hub is at Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore and Islamabad International Airport.

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