Financial crunch: PIA 'temporarily' grounds some of its planes
Pakistan
The spokesperson rules out the closure of flight operations
KARACHI (Web Desk) - The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has “temporarily” grounded some of its planes, the airlines' spokesperson confirmed on Thursday.
He, however, claimed that the airline would be back in the air once payments were made.
A report published in Bloomberg on Wednesday quoted spokesperson Abdullah Khan as saying the airline had to cancel a number of domestic and international flights after grounding five of its Airbus A320 jets.
The report quoted him as further saying that PIA must pay at least $100 million immediately to about half a dozen leasing firms it has engaged for chartering aircraft, airport authorities, aircraft spares and others.
“PIA’s liabilities have increased to Rs743 billion or $2.5bn, which exceeds its total assets by five times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg,” the report said.
Khan told a media house that some leased planes had been temporarily grounded and would be back once payments are made.”
He said there were blocked funds since December 2022, foreign exchange conversion challenges for payments concerning leases, airport handling fees, and component support programmes.
Responding to a local news channel's report that quoted a senior airline official as warning that PIA was on the verge of collapse and flight operations could be suspended by Sept 15 “if emergency funds are not provided”.
“We are not shutting down by 15th. The situation might be tough but not to the brink of closure,” the PIA spokesperson claimed.
