Pakistan International Airlines has incurred an estimated loss of over USD 17 million since last week due to the country-wide strike by its employees against the planned privatisation of the ailing national flag carrier, an official said today.
The protest was launched on January 26 but it turned violent on Tuesday when at least two PIA workers were shot dead in clashes with security forces outside the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi.
The airline had suffered a loss of one billion Pakistani rupees till February 2. It lost another 500 million rupees between February 2 and 3 and by February 4, the cash-strapped carrier lost another estimated 300 million rupees, PIA spokesperson Danyal Gilani said.
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"So far, the airline has reported a loss of 1.8 billion rupees (over USD 17 million)," Gilani was quoted as saying by Dawn news.
The losses are due to grounding of the entire fleet of PIA and costs due to accommodating passengers with valid tickets at hotels and arranging other airlines to transport them.
Four major airports - Karachi's Jinnah International Airport, Islamabad's Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Lahore's Allama Iqbal International Airport and Peshawar's Bacha Khan International Airport - saw a huge rush of passengers due to flight cancellations.
Gilani said PIA is in final stages of negotiations with Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines to facilitate passengers booked to travel internationally.
Despite losses and suffering, no headway has been made so far in resolving the issues.
At the center is a demand by workers to cancel a law passed last month to enable government to transform PIA into a public limited company and sell its shares with management rights.
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The services of a private carrier are being used to accommodate passengers booked on domestic flights.
The management also arranged four Boeing 747 jumbo planes to bring back hundreds of Pakistani pilgrims stranded in Jeddah because of cancellation of the PIA flights.
The government plans to split the PIA into two companies and sell the control of its core business to a global airline.
According to sources, Pakistan has already decided to offload several big organisations running into losses, including PIA, under an agreement with IMF and will ultimately sell it.
The government has said that it will go ahead with the privatisation plans of the PIA, which has total losses and debts of around 254 and 300 billion Pakistani Rupees (USD 2.8 billion).
Launched in 1955, PIA presently has a workforce of around 14,700 with a ratio of around 390 employees for one aircraft, the biggest in any airline.
