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ISLAMABAD - Pakistan International Airlines issued free air tickets of around Rs11 million to as many 332 individuals during the last two years of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government.

The PIA, which is running into billions of losses, claims that it had issued no free tickets after September 30, 2018 – some weeks after the incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) formed a new government as a result of general elections held on July 25, 2018.

According to a report presented by Senate Standing Committee on Aviation in the Senate, the PIA has provided a list of 332 individuals who have been provided free air tickets of worth Rs10.8 million only for a period of 27 months starting from July 2016 to September 2018. “PIA has further informed that after September 2018, no free air ticket was issued,” the report said, adding that the airline’s chief executive officer (CEO) is competent authority for issuance of free tickets.

The 332 beneficiaries included senior officers of the Aviation Division as well as the airline; officials of the Customs Department; legal consultants of the national flag career; a former federal minister; people belonging to different consultancy firms, journalists, social media experts and of the brand management companies.

In October 2018, Aviation Secretary Saqib Aziz had told the Senate Standing Committee on Aviation that PIA was suffering operational losses of Rs2 billion per month due to rupee’s depreciation against dollar and a jump in fuel prices. He said that these operational losses were in addition to outstanding liabilities of Rs400 billion, including bank loans, of the state-owned airline.

The aviation secretary had described the increase in fuel prices and depreciation of rupee against dollar as the two major reasons for the airline’s financial crunch besides another major factor of overstaffing. The meeting was informed that the airline had 13,500 regular employees and some 3,500 daily wagers and the ratio of workers per aircraft stood at 450. The PIA has more than 4,000 employees only in its engineering section.

In February, CEO PIA Air Marshal (R) Arshad Mehmood in a meeting informed Prime Minister Imran Khan that a comprehensive business plan for the revival of the airline would be presented by the end of March. He briefed the PM on the airline’s revival plan.

Last government had made botched efforts more than once to privatise the ailing airline to ease the burden on national kitty but to no avail because of the protests of the airline’s employees against this plan. The new government has announced that the privatisation of PIA was not in its manifesto rather it would introduce a revival plan of the airline.

In a meeting held in January, the PM was told that the PIA losses had crossed Rs414 billion and the entity was facing a deficit of Rs500 million on 7 international routes in addition to incurring losses on domestic routes.