Prime Minister Refuses to Approve Financial Assistance Requested by PIA Management

[Abbas Ali]

According to DAWN News channel:

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has refused PIA management's request for a financial assistance. PIA gets such financial assistance from the Government of Pakistan after about every three to four months.

A summary for financial assistance was sent to Prime Minster Office before PM Abbasi left for New York to attend UN General Assembly session. The summary was returned to the airline without approval/signature of PM Abbasi.

PM Abbasi has advised airline's management to submit a Business Plan that enables the airline to earn revenues.

The airline's management is working to prepare a Business Plan that will be submitted after PM Abbasi returns to Pakistan.

Abbas

[ammad]

Prime minister did the right thing. PIA needs to learn how to handle herself correctly.

[arshad.altaf]

Who will bell the cat by laying off unnecessary human resource and deal with political issues, human rights cry and court stay orders and much more.

Arshad

[Abdulrafeysiddiqui]

Prime minister did the right thing. PIA needs to learn how to handle herself correctly.

Agreed but one thing is that our PM owns Airblue!

[Abbas Ali]

PM Abbasi owns/has shares in airblue is now another lame excuse for years of PIA failures and poor financial health.

Anyway, the current government led by PM Abbasi eventually will also have to approve some sort of financial package for ailing PIA.

Abbas

[Amaad Lone]

Best news today.

PIA needs to stand on its two feet.

Consuming 15 billion every three to four months.

That money should be spent on schools.

If Air Blue and Shaheen can fly without government help then so should PIA

Remove half the employees if you have to.

Good no government help. Let the airline SHUT DOWN FOR A MONTH.

[Amaad Lone]

PIA cannot survive in its current format.

PIA must remove 50 percent labor force.

PIA must hand over the hotels to the government in return of 160 billion debt write off.

Put in professional management with no government interference.

Have a system of checks and balances and check leakage and corruption in the airline.

With half the debt gone and half the wage bill gone PIA can then operate as a lean airline and make money.

Anything else will be a four month plan until next government bail out.

khaqan Abbasi has nothing to lose, he is like the care taker PM, he should not bail out PIA.

[Abbas Ali]

In DAWN News channel programme 'News Eye' hosted by Meher Abbasi, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that PIA management came to him and informed that airline's Business Plan will be presented to him. Mr. Abbasi said that he told PIA management that in case Business Plan is not acceptable then airline's management will have to be privatised to at least end its losses.

Abbas

[Adnan Anwar]

Prime minister did the right thing. PIA needs to learn how to handle herself correctly.

Agreed but one thing is that our PM owns Airblue!

exactly , with the demise of PIA (God forbid) , then I suspect does the PM plans to have the void filled by Air Blue. There is already a conflict of interest when he became a minister.

[Amaad Lone]

Khaqan Abbasi has a minority share holding in Air Blue.

Second of all why should the government keep bailing out PIA without any light at the end of the tunnel.

PIA has no business plan to get out of losses and just wants short term bailouts.

Its not a government's job to bail out failing state owned companies.

government job is to provide health care, education, security and infrastructure to the people so they can invest their money.

Not government job to keep an airline afloat so 19000 jobs can be protected at the cost of 300 billion in the last 13 years.

[Ammar]

Khaqan Abbasi has a minority share holding in Air Blue.

Second of all why should the government keep bailing out PIA without any light at the end of the tunnel.

PIA has no business plan to get out of losses and just wants short term bailouts.

Its not a government's job to bail out failing state owned companies.

government job is to provide health care, education, security and infrastructure to the people so they can invest their money.

Not government job to keep an airline afloat so 19000 jobs can be protected at the cost of 300 billion in the last 13 years.

No one is saying that PIA should keep getting bailed out, we're just saying that there may be two sides to the story. The fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister does own a stake in airblue.
It's debatable how large or small that share is, but one thing is certain; there is a share in that airline.

So whether this decision is correct or not, ultimately, the (God forbid) demise of PIA would benefit the Prime Minister personally. This is a conflict of interest. Keeping politics aside from the forum, it's clear that the PM will obviously favour airblue, because, even if he relinquishes all his shares in it (which he won't), he will still have friends, colleagues, and maybe even family working in that airline. So many reasons why it's possible that this bailout package is being denied, and even though I think PIA needs to be given a final wakeup call, what the PMs motives are, we can only speculate.

[Abbas Ali]

Thank God, apparently no one linked to Shaheen Air is in the government otherwise he/she also would have been blamed for PIA woes.

Abbas

[Amaad Lone]

Government of Pakistan has to keep fiscal deficit to 4% of GDP or even lower to 3.6%. Cannot keep bailing out money for failing companies.

What will be next Pakistan Steel Mills, supporting a mill with 1950s Russian machinery.

How much money did Pakistan Railways get in the last four years of PML government, it has managed to revive and actually raise revenue many folds??

All PIA lovers should keep Khaqan Abbasi out of the equation and see if the airline DESERVES A BAILOUT. Losses increasing from 33 billion a year to 45 billion.

What has PIA done to stop the bleeding??????????????? Khaqan Abbasi I am sure has financial advisors who tell him what to say, its not like he is so independent that he can decide or not decide. What conflict of interest for god sakes, what is Air Blue going to do start operating 12 777s in the next six months.

PIA needs to think outside the box. Talk to a foreign bank that will provide money against the hotels and use that money to pay off the debt dramatically reducing the 13 billion in finance charges. Then borrow some money to re-organize, and remove 35 percent labor force.

Without dramatic steps it will just be a SHORT TERM SOLUTION.