This time around PIA is pleading that it is suffering from the knock-on effects of the crash of PK-661, but the reality is that it has been in a permanent crisis of liquidity for most of the last five years. Now there is a new wrinkle. Cash input over the last three years has, says PIA, improved efficiency and increased the size of the fleet but it has produced what is dubbed ‘a reverse challenge’ described as ‘surplus capacity and low yields.’ A no-win situation.
Throwing money at the multiple problems of PIA, no matter how large the sum, is going to solve nothing. As of August 2017 there are 33 operational aircraft and eight on order. Definitive figures are hard to find; but in March 2017 the airline probably had 14,771 people permanently employed with a further 4,500-5,000 temporary contract workers. A simple calculation gives a permanent employees ratio of 447:1 against an industry standard of 120-200 per airframe that is operational. Attempts to reduce the ratio have been stymied politically and by the unions. The airline suffers periodic ‘scandals’ involving pilots and crew members and in the last year lost its German CEO under decidedly murky circumstances linked to the sale of a decommissioned aircraft. The plan to split the airline into two tabled in January 2017 appears to have entered limbo. The catalogue goes ever on and will continue to do so as long as spineless politics determine the fate and future of the national flag carrier.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 31st, 2017.
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