PIA Losses Increase by a Staggering Rs. 217 Billion in 10 Years

The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has revealed that Pakistan International Airlines, once Asia’s top airline, has put a burden of over Rs. 217 billion on the national exchequer in the last decade.

This shocking revelation was made in a 10-year audit report submitted to the Supreme Court.

The top court had ordered the AGP to submit an audit report of the airline for the last decade in order to highlight the causes behind its demise.

The AGP conducted an audit of the PIA from July to September 2018. The report points out that the national airline’s losses in December 2008 were Rs 72.353 billion. This sum amounted to a whopping Rs 360.117 billion in December 2017.

Reasons behind the Surging Losses

The reports highlight the following factors as major reasons behind PIA’s losses:

• Non-professionalism
• Untrained staff
• Overstaffing
• Fake-degree holder staff and pilots
• Out of turn favors by the government to competitors
• Lack of modern industry-specific knowledge
• The nontransparent hiring of higher officials

The report laments unprofessionalism at PIA and maintains that it has been run by a non-business entity where there were no professional CEOs with industrial insight.

The report made a startling revelation that PIA’s 457 employees, including 16 pilots had fake degrees. Several of these employees have managed to get a stay order from the court and are still receiving a salary from the airline.

The findings have also revealed that many employees were hired on political grounds and were later regularized by the management, misusing the policy of regularization of contract employees.

It also maintains that PIA sustained a loss of Rs. 56 billion due to mismanagement of acquiring aircraft on dry lease at exorbitant rates.

The reports also say that PIA wasted Rs. 4 billion owing to an unprofessional way of fuel hedging.