The flying brick

A report submitted to the SC by PIA shows total liabilities have now reached Rs406 billion

Bricks do not fly, at least of their own accord. They can be hurled but the flight is short and the upwards trajectory unsustainable with gravity quickly ascendant. Bricks, flight, and the laws of physics just do not go together. Unless the brick in question is Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). A report submitted to the Supreme Court by PIA itself amounts to a suicide note. Total liabilities have now reached Rs406 billion against known assets of Rs111 billion. Accumulated losses are now Rs356 billion, including those incurred in 2017. It is kept flying by injections of government money. Most routes operate at a loss, aircraft are grounded for a variety of reasons, and there are too many employees for the size of its operation — a fact well known for many years. Political interference, staff demotivation — hardly surprising — and chronically poor interdepartmental coordination plus a dysfunctional HR department all add up to a crippled entity that ought to be put out of its misery.

There is a brutal honesty about the report that says that PIA lacks the capability to rescue itself. There are core competency gaps, unions have a stranglehold and it runs more like a creaking government department than a modern business.

This madness has to stop. Talk of returns to the glory days of old are nothing but fantasy and PIA is too broke to fix. It could be shut down tomorrow and there is enough capacity in the private sector to absorb the additional passengers, indeed the private airline industry whilst not wholly free of problems is a lot more airworthy than the national carrier. National flag carriers ought to carry the pride of the state on their livery, but PIA is now applying to the Supreme Court for permission to use the markhor symbol as a mark of the airlines’ revival. A risible divorce from reality if ever there was one. The airline has written for itself what amounts to a draft order to shut itself down, almost a plea for mercy. The incoming government has to finally grasp the nettle and turn off the life-support because brain death occurred long ago.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2018.

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