Closer to sell-off
The country’s most prominent white elephant is one step closer to being sold: the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) board has approved a privatisation plan aimed at raising upwards of $250 million dollars from a prospective buyer. Reports and recent history suggest the buyer will probably be one of the large Middle Eastern airlines, many of which have already been scooping up beleaguered state carriers across the region and turning them into profitable support services for their core international networks.
The board’s decision to recommit to the government’s privatisation deadline — June 15 — would suggest potential buyers are lining up because it would probably take that long to get through the paperwork and due diligence. Meeting attendees have reportedly said that if all goes well, the deal could be wrapped up within a month. Meanwhile, work on bifurcating the airline and absorbing its most crippling dollar and rupee loans is also moving along at a steady pace.
As for the parliamentarians making a fuss about privatising the airline, they are more than welcome to put together consortia that are willing to bid for PIA if they are concerned about transferring ownership to a foreign power. The government is literally asking for handouts to run essential services. It can’t afford to burn money on an airline that is nothing more than a vanity project at this point. The likely end of direct flights to Toronto, Barcelona, Milan, and Paris is a minor inconvenience.
And even if a prospective buyer can’t turn the airline around, at least it won’t be squeezing Islamabad for further handouts. That is not to say that privatisation should be rushed through. Despite PIA staff’s less-than-stellar performance reviews and many redundancies, these are still real people with real families, and the government needs to ensure that layoffs and golden handshakes are implemented in a manner that minimises harm to otherwise innocent employees.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 29th, 2024.
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