PIA management has sought injection of nearly Rs 10 billion to keep the national flag carrier in the skies. There was apparently no firm commitment from the Government side during meeting of the PIA management with Advisor on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, who conveyed PIA that the Government wanted it to effectively utilize its assets, improve revenue streams and ensure efficiency and financial discipline. Instead of making a firm pledge, the Advisor asked Ministry of Finance to work closely with the PIA management and provide them all possible financial help, keeping in view the availability of fiscal space.
PIA has been facing financial crisis since long due to management issues, gross interference by the government in its affairs and lack of required interest on the part of officials concerned to ensure required reforms in the airlines. However, there are reasons to believe that PIA has started moving in the right direction ever since the new Chief Executive Officer Air Marshal Arshad Malik took charge. The improvement in the affairs of PIA was manifest in Hajj flight operation as well, which went well in pre-Hajj phase and is proceeding satisfactorily in the post-Hajj period as well as against numerous complaints in the past when seldom any flight departed from or reached its destination on time. The new management has taken several measures to rectify wrongs of the past and run the airlines on commercial and professional lines. In the words of CEO, there had been a significant reduction in operation cost of the airline due to optimal utilization of PIA assets. Similarly, all relevant leaders and officials, in the past, had been complaining of staff redundancy in PIA but took no measures to rationalize the strength. The new management has reportedly laid off nearly one thousand redundant staff to save costs. The Government deserves credit for striking the PIA off from the list of privatization, providing opportunity to its management and staff to make attempts for revival and glory of this national institution. We hope they would not disappoint the Government and the nation and soon the PIA would once again be tanked one of the top airlines of the world.
