Pakistan International Airlines has resorted to widespread flight cancellation, leaving thousands of passengers in distress as the national flag carrier’s financial situation went from bad to worse.
Since Sunday, the airline has cancelled around 77 international and domestic flights due to the non-availability of fuel to manage its flight schedule.

Presently operating with just 16 aircraft, the partially state-owned airline, which the caretaker government wants to privatise, has got into a muddle with the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) refinery which supplies fuel to the airlines over non-payment of dues and its credit line.

A PSO official said the PIA owed billions of rupees in dues.

“This is the second time in seven days we have had to suspend supplying fuel to PIA because of the mounting unpaid dues. They are making partial payments to meet their daily fuel requirements but the dues remain unpaid as yet,” he said.

The airline, which was once considered the pride of Pakistan and was the first international airline to be given access to fly to Beijing, is said to be suffering millions in losses on a daily basis.

A PIA spokesperson confirmed that 77 flights had been cancelled since Sunday after the PSO cut the airline’s fuel supply.

“Today the situation has improved as payments have been made and matters are being sorted out with PSO,” he said.

He however could not confirm how many flights had flown on schedule on Monday but hoped the schedule would be normalised by late night.

“The airline couldn’t pay on Sunday due to banks being closed,” he explained.

The national carrier had 81 flights – 52 international and 29 on domestic routes – scheduled for take-off on Sunday. However, all but four international flights were cancelled, according to him.

The PIA spokesperson said flights had been partially restored on Monday.

Last month, a meeting of the Privatisation Commission agreed on a clear timeline for the privatisation of PIA.

The flight cancellations caused problems for thousands of travellers on international and domestic routes with many of them telling television channels they had never seen the situation so bad in the airline.

Aviation experts believe the airline’s poor state of affairs was mainly due to overstaffing and political appointments in PIA over the years and the decision of the government to have an open skies policy a decade back.

The airline has been so badly managed in the last few years that the PIA has even had its leased aircraft seized in foreign countries because of non-payment of dues.

In July, an aircraft was stopped in Kuala Lumpur by a leasing company as it wanted its dues cleared first.

To make matters worse, a former federal minister for aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan caused the airlines to close its credibility in Europe and other countries when he claimed in the National Assembly that more than 30 per cent of the civilian pilots in the country held “fake” licences.

He claimed that 262 out of the 860 active pilots “did not take the exam themselves” and had paid someone else to appear on their behalf. 

A residents’ body in Noida on Monday said it will move the Supreme Court against the Allahabad High Court’s recent order acquitting domestic help Surendra Koli and his employer Moninder Singh Pandher in the 2006 Nithari serial killings.

The District Development Residents Welfare Association (DDRWA) is consulting legal experts and has met the victim families to take the case further.

“We first thought of extending financial assistance to the victim families but after discussions, it was decided that we will take up the case and bear the legal expenses of the case in the Supreme Court,” DDRWA president N P Singh told news agency PTI.

“We have taken the consent of the victim families, and are consulting lawyers who are studying the high court’s order. They will guide us on the way ahead in this case. We are hoping to move the Supreme Court within a week,” Mr Singh added.

Ashok, who had lost his five-year-old son in the Nithari serial killings, said he has spoken to the residents’ body about the case.

“I have given them my go head for taking up this case in the top court. Let’s see what happens next,” Ashok, who runs a footwear shop, told PTI.

Businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, 65, who was arrested in the sensational case, walked out of Luksar jail in Greater Noida on Friday.

The Allahabad High Court on October 16 acquitted him and his domestic help Koli in the case after noting that the prosecution had failed to prove guilt “beyond reasonable doubt” and that the investigation was botched up.

The two were charged with rape and murder and sentenced to death by a lower court in the killings in Nithari, Noida, that horrified the nation with the details of sexual assault, brutal murder and hints of possible cannibalism.

The Congress on Monday night declared its candidate for the last remaining assembly constituency in Madhya Pradesh, Amla in Betul district, but with a bureaucrat who was tipped to be the party nominee not getting government’s nod in time to quit service, the ticket has gone to someone else for the next month’s polls.

The opposition party fielded its member Manoj Malve from Amla and with this, it has completed the process of putting up nominees on all the 230 assembly seats for the November 17 elections.

The Congress, in two separate lists, had declared 229 candidates with only the Amla seat left out.

Earlier, Betul deputy collector Nisha Bangre, whose resignation is awaiting the state government’s approval, was tipped to be the Congress candidate from the constituency.

However, after the announcement of Mr Malve’s candidature, suspense over Ms Bangre’s entry into poll fray has ended.

Ms Bangre has approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court seeking direction to the government for speedy acceptance of her resignation, which she tendered on June 22.

However, the bureaucrat’s petition had been pending as she faces disciplinary proceedings, her counsel, senior advocate Brian De Silva, had said earlier.

While hearing her petition, the High Court in Jabalpur earlier last week directed the state government to take a decision by October 23 on her resignation from service and disciplinary proceedings against her.

With the Congress fielding candidates on all the 230 seats in MP, it is clear the national outfit has not entered into any tie-up with its two allies in the INDIA bloc, the Samajwadi Party (SP) or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The SP and the AAP have come out with separate lists of candidates for the polls in the BJP-ruled state.