Loss-making PIA announced bonuses for employees on their “good performance”

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), one of the biggest money-losing entities in the country, has ironically announced that they will pay their employees an increment for “good performance”.

As reported by The News, PIA’s management announced the bonus for the performance of the employees over the last six months, from April to September. The bonus will be implemented by October 2023. The amount that was decided is tantamount to the bonus issued in 2022.

PIA is going through a monthly loss of Rs 12 billion and a total loss of over Rs 740 billion but the bonus that was announced is Rs 915 million. The increment in salaries will be 5-10 percent paid on March 31, 2023. The employees who are told to leave on or before October were recruited recently or got a promotion or salary increase in these six months are not eligible for it.

The airline has announced this expenditure while it is grappling with issues of fuel outages and financial loss. According to Caretaker Federal Minister for Privatization Fawad Hasan Fawad, 15 out of 34 PIA aircraft are grounded, the airline is operating with only 19 aircraft and some of them are also not fully operational. The gap between income (22 billion) and expense(34 billion) which is increasing with time.

Amidst the ongoing debate of privatization, PIA has taken a loan of Rs260 billion from commercial banks on a government guarantee. It is not paying tax of Rs1.25 billion to the FBR and has not been able to pay more than Rs1 billion per month to Civil Aviation.