- National carrier becomes a source of embarrassment for country yet again
An ongoing legal dispute between Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and a company that leased the national carrier two Boeing 777s in 2015, pending in a UK court, has resulted in one of those aircraft being impounded in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia shortly after it landed there from Karachi leading to passengers being deboarded. PIA’s failure to pay the leasing fee amounting to $14 million of both aircrafts for the past six months is perhaps understandable due to how hard the aviation industry has been hit by Covid-19, but that does not explain why the aircraft were being sent on international flights despite there being a clear risk of them being seized. Either someone was asleep on the job or PIA’s senior management simply has no understanding of international civil aviation leasing laws. This is exactly the sort of negligence that occurs when a state run institution hires incompetent people without any merit who are comfortable in the knowledge that their job is secure due to the lack of accountability and performance critique. Even the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), hardly a shining example of what a competent aviation regulator should be, has expressed its displeasure over how careless the PIA has been. This is the second such avoidable incident related to the aviation sector within a year that has caused considerable international embarrassment, the first one being Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan declaring on the National Assembly floor that 262 pilots in Pakistan held fake licenses. Not only was the accusation blown out of proportion but was handled so recklessly, that competent career pilots with up to date and authentic legal paperwork were grounded by their employers.
PIA defaulting on its lease payments will mean that other aircraft lessors will be less inclined to work with it due to its high credit risk. The national carrier was drowning in debt much before the pandemic, consistently in need of bailouts and does not afford the legal fees that will pile up due to this case, never mind the lease it has been unable to pay but will eventually have to. It seems that apart from the more conventional flight delays caused by bad weather or a faulty aircraft being repaired, passengers travelling on PIA have to be wary of chances that the aircraft they have boarded could be grounded due to the airline not paying its bills on time. This will surely do some damage to revenue numbers that are already struggling. Heads should roll for this debacle but given PIA’s track record, nothing more than a slap on the wrist of a mid-management level employee should be expected, at best.
