AS it descends deeper into chaos, PIA’s search for hope has yielded few results so far. The understandable frustration of the prime minister’s aviation adviser was evident from his recommendations given to the Senate Special Committee on PIA on Thursday. He presented three stark choices: let the status quo stand, shut down the airline altogether, or restructure it. The fact that he did not even mention privatisation, despite the airline being on the early implementation list of the government’s privatisation programme since 2013, speaks volumes for the kind of political storms that have obstructed the efforts of successive governments to find a way forward for the ailing carrier. The Musharraf regime tried to sell the Roosevelt Hotel in New York in order to pay off some of the airline’s debts that have weighed down its balance sheet, only to find itself in the middle of a political storm. The PPP government tried to enter into a code-sharing agreement with Turkish Airlines, but became embroiled in a street fight with the unions in the process. Similarly, the current government found itself in a bruising battle with the unions when it tried to hurriedly transform the state-owned airline into a corporation via a presidential ordinance.

In each case, there was fault to be found on all sides. The unions are undoubtedly unruly and a nursing ground for all sorts of rackets. Successive governments, for their part, have moved secretively, and in some cases, in a heavy-handed manner, to advance their proposals, giving rise to suspicions that private interests took precedence over the airline’s larger good. The opposition parties have played a destructive role, preferring to be obstructive rather than constructive. They have, at every opportunity, opposed the government’s moves even though they themselves had made similar moves when in power. Meanwhile, the accumulated losses of the airline, which made headlines when they touched Rs92bn in 2010, had crossed Rs300bn by January of this year. The result is in the form of the stark choices presented by the adviser, which include shutting the airline down altogether.

But despair is no solution, and the search for hope cannot be abandoned. Given this is an election year, there is little chance that the government can be expected to take any of the bold moves required to reform the national carrier. For the next year, unfortunately, the airline has no option but to hobble along with its clobbered reputation and moth-eaten balance sheet. There is no one cause for PIA’s decline. Unruly labour unions, corruption, political interference and the open skies policy have all played their role in a complex mix. But the solution clearly lies beyond the government’s control now. The airline must pass out of government hands if it is to survive.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2017