PIA gains ‘losses’

The ‘green’ of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has merely been confined to its logo. It rarely finds its way to the white elephant’s income statements. The long overdue financial statements of 9MCY16 were released yesterday, and it expectedly did not make a good reading. PIA has been making losses such regularly, that even the income statement now permanently has head of accounts named after losses.

Coming to the business end of things, it all started from the top line. The net revenues saw a minor year-on-year decline, as PIA still struggles with capacity issues, as highlighted in the previous year’s director’s report. It got worse with the cost of services that soared massively, despite a sizeable drop in aircraft fuel cost.

The result was a gross loss, which was a major deviation from a rare event of gross profit recorded in the same period last year. This is despite the fact that oil prices have remained on the lower side for quite some time. There is hardly any coming back for airlines from a gross loss, and PIA is not any airline. The legacy of overstaffing, inefficiency, high financial leverage all contributed to make matters worse.

The national flag carrier luckily lost much less on exchange rate, but the damage done on other accounts was enough to not let it mitigate earlier losses. The loss from operations as a result more than doubled from the same period last year. Finance costs have also been a bane for PIA, as both long term and short term borrowing continue to trouble.

PIA is ill, and needs a doctor if not a surgeon yet. Merely hoping to clean the mess by changing some seats in the business class segments, or running a premier service would not help. Oil prices too, would not forever remain where they are. Any thoughts of privatization should be held back for at least another year as the elections near. Huge losses, unfortunately, seem to be PIA’s fate in the near future too.