KARACHI: The year 2016 proved to be one of the worst in Pakistan International Airline (PIA) history with graph of collective financial losses flying high in numbers, ARY News reported.
Once considered to be the symbol of respect for Pakistan across the globe, the airline has become bankrupt. The overall losses to the national flag carrier crossed Rs350 billion in 2016 due to mismanagement and defective strategy.
The protest of PIA employees which started in January against privatization continued for 10 days in February. Police and Rangers baton-charged and fired tear-gas on the mob proceeding towards the airport, meanwhile, two engineers were killed from firing of unknown persons.
Read More: PIA grounds all ATR planes for ‘complete inspection’
The killing further infuriated the protestors and they completely halted the flight operation which remained dysfunctional for four days, resultantly giving the national airline a loss of Rs4 billion.
PIA launched its premier service to London on August 14, however this initiative could not bear fruit and gave a loss of Rs4 billion more to the national flag carrier.
On December 07, one ATR plane PK-661, heading to Islamabad from Chitral, crashed in Havelian killing 48 persons.
Read More: PK-661 crash: PIA dispels media reports regarding failure of engine
Later, PIA had to ground all of its 10 ATR aircrafts after the Civil Aviation Authority ordered shakedown tests of the planes, due to which the airline had to bear millions of rupee loss a day.
Defective strategy of the management also reduced the number of passengers and the tall claims made by the management changed in recent years have turned out to be words of mouth only.
