Overdue payments: PSO resumes fuel supply to PIA

Meeting takes place between national carrier, ministry and PSO officials.

KARACHI: A serious crisis for Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) was averted Thursday evening after its jet fuel supplier reluctantly resumed supply, which remained discontinued for most of the day, officials said.

The Pakistan State Oil (PSO), which supplies on average 382 tons of jet fuel per day to PIA, stopped supply in the morning after a deadline for the airline to clear its due passed.



A PSO spokesperson said that PIA owes the oil supplier over Rs12 billion. “These are payments due on PIA for the last one year.”  PIA’s flight schedule was not affected as the airline had sufficient fuel stock at various airports to meet its requirement.

But the international carrier would have faced possible flight delays or even cancellations if PSO had not resumed supply by evening, officials said.

Senior PIA officials were in Islamabad meeting Ministry of Petroleum and PSO officials to sort out the problem.



“We are deciding on the modalities that would be used to make the payments to PSO,” said a PIA official.

PIA procures Rs36 million worth of fuel from PSO every day. This is not the first time such a situation has arisen because of nonpayment of bills.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2014.

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