LAHORE – On special instructions of Interior Minister Ch Nisar Ali Khan, the Punjab FIA has started an inquiry against PIA management into charges of corruption worth millions of rupees in recently leased A-330 and A-320 aircraft.
An FIA officer said other private airlines of the country leased the planes of the same family at very low rates as compared to the national carrier.
Well-placed sources in FIA said investigators had sought record from PIA and Shaheen airlines, but the PIA management was reluctant to provide relevant record of the leased aircraft.
The national flag carrier officials provided partial record after the repeated reminders issued by the FIA investigation team.
The sources claimed the minister interior was very keen in the transparency issues of the national airline and was keeping in touch with the development in the case on regular basis.
An FIA officer, seeking anonymity, said holding the inquiry regarding the leased planes in Lahore was unprecedented; normally, it was conducted by FIA Karachi or Islamabad.
A-330 aircraft from Sri Lankan Airlines leased at astronomically high rate is shocking, an FIA investigator said. Sri Lankan Airlines wanted to downsize their fleet because their accumulated loss had reached $993 million, while PIA losses had risen to over Rs 300 billion by the 3rd quarter of 2016 as per briefing given to the Senate committee with over Rs 5 billion losses every month. It has become a controversial practice in PIA that they lease aircraft of the same type at 60 to 100 percent higher rates than that leased by other private airlines of Pakistan.
If PIA had ascertained reasons why Sri Lankan Airlines was desperate to lease A330 aircraft to a customer, they would have found out that huge losses forced them to do so. The Sri Lankan prime minister had appointed his brother-in-law Kapila Chandrasena as CEO with no commercial aviation experience or management qualification, who embarked on over ambitious programme for increasing capacity by signing a controversial agreement to induct six A330 and four A350.
Debt-ridden Sri Lankan Airlines with accumulated losses of $ 993 million has leased four of its A330 aircraft to PIA as cost-cutting measures to save it from bankruptcy. Former President Rajapaske and several of his relatives, including his brother-in-law, are under investigation over alleged corruption in 2013 deal for A350 and A330. According to press reports, SLA was paying $ 450,000 per month as installment for each A330 which comes to $15,000 per day. PIA is paying approximately $8000 per hour as lease charges which for 17-hour Islamabad-London-Islamabad return flight comes to $136,000.
(This news was published in The Nation newspaper – Pakistan)