Former Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Pasha has strongly opposed privatisation of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), arguing that the national flag carrier has started showing operating profits. In an exclusive talk with Business Recorder here on Wednesday, he said that PIA is showing operating profits after a decline in the international price of petroleum products. There is no justification for privatising the national airline of the country.
The privatisation of our national asset would be a wrong decision by the government. The losses of the India's national carrier ie Air India are two times higher than PIA's, but they are not considering privatising their national airline, he added. Dr Pasha said he has conducted an international comparison of airlines that reveals that our cost of wages in PIA is only 18 percent which is a very small proportion as compared to the wage cost of other airlines. The wages we offer to the carrier's employees are lower than what are offered by other international airlines. "It is mere propaganda that wages of the employees working in the PIA are very high," Dr Pasha stated.
He said the national flag carrier suffered losses during the tenure of Pervez Musharraf; it is not correct that it started suffering losses from the tenure of the PPP. One of the major reasons for losses of PIA in 2007-2008 was a steep rise in global oil prices; but other international airlines also suffered financial losses during that period.
If PIA is sold to some private company, it would immediately stop its operations to the loss-making domestic routes like Chitral, Gilgit and Quetta. The private organisation would only allow flights on profit making routes like Islamabad, Karachi, etc, Dr Pasha maintained. The Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Aviation Captain (Retd) Shujaat Azeem, who tendered his resignation in pursuance of Supreme Court verdict a month and a half go with the matter still pending, rejected the notion that the government issued an ordinance to privatise the PIA.
The government has converted Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (PIAC) via Ordinance No XVII dated 4 December 2015 from a statutory corporation into a company governed by the Companies Ordinance, 1984. The new entity is called Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Limited (PIACL).
Azeem while talking exclusively to Business Recorder averred that when he took over the charge of PIA there were only 18 planes and now the airline has 38 planes which by the end of December 2015 will be 40, adding that PIA has turned into a profit making entity from a loss making one. Replying to another question, Azeem stated that the PPP-led coalition government had over-staffed PIA during its tenure but added that he brought down the number of employees - 550 - for each plane to 250 employees per plane. He added that PIA has such a huge number of employees that it can serve 78 planes as per international standards.
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