Pakistan International Airline’s (PIA) counsel Raja Bashir informed the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the PIA had suffered a loss of 7 million passengers from 2009-2012 due to the unilateral freedom which has been granted to foreign airlines.
A three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Shiekh Azmat Saeed resumed hearing of PIA corruption case on the applications moved by Transparency International, PML-N Secretary General Iqbal Zafar Jhagra and Marvi Memon.
Expressing its displeasure over the running of PIA’s affairs, the court raised questions over the airline’s alleged non-transparent deals, weak management, over-employment, financial losses and flight delays.
“All future procurements should be made under the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules,” the chief justice said.
“The PIA, which has helped in the establishment of many airlines, is nothing more than a fleet of old aircrafts now. Moreover, there are allegations of corruption in the purchasing of new ones,” he said.
“Even the former defence minister admitted on a private TV channel that the airline incurred a loss of Rs. 44 billion in 2008, with a Rs. 70 million loss per day,” he added.
The counsel, however, maintained that the losses were incurred due to fluctuation in the fuel prices.
An official from the national flag carrier explained to the court that a majority of these passengers were not flying from Pakistan to the home bases of those airlines, but were flying to other destinations where the PIA operates direct flights from Pakistan; causing huge losses in the revenue.
He told the court that at present, PIA has 17,227 employees and the total monthly salary of its staff amounts to Rs. 1.16 billion, which is almost 12% of revenue earned in 2011.
He informed the court that the PIA has a total number of 38 aircrafts in its entire fleet and the employee to aircraft ratio is 453.
He also complained that while Pakistan was liberal in granting traffic rights to other carriers, advanced nations were being protective about their markets and denying PIA the opportunity to increase its flights to their countries. The bench adjourned hearing till December 14.
