ISLAMABAD – The national carrier of the country has successfully retrieved another aircraft that was stuck in Indonesia for around 2 years.
In this regard, a special flight PK-9897 flew off from Jakarta and arrived in Bangkok on Wednesday for refueling before continuing its journey to Karachi.
The data from the Flight Radar’s portal also confirms the arrival of the plane from Indonesia, weeks after a team of the carrier negotiated with the Indonesian authorities.
The matter had been lingering on for two years but the first aircraft was recovered in December last year after payment of $13 million. PIA has yet to confirm the arrival of the second plane officially and the details regarding the payment made in this regard.
The agreement is a result of talks between the high-level delegation of PIA and the federal government and the Indonesian side that happened in October.
A brief background of the dispute is that PIA’s two Airbus A320 aircraft had been parked in Jakarta since September 2021 due to a dispute with the leasing company.
The national carrier had initially returned the Airbus A320 planes to the leasing company in 2021 but the leasing company declined to accept the aircraft, asserting that they did not meet the specified criteria outlined in the contract.
The national carrier of Pakistan is facing multiple challenges at the moment and there have been demands for privatizing the national carrier due to its economic nonviability. Former Aviation Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique also stressed the importance of privatizing the carrier or else it would have to shut operations.
In the final days of the PDM regime, it was also decided to privatize loss-making Pakistan International Airlines during a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Privatization chaired by then Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.
The caretaker minister for Privatisation, Fawad Hassan Fawad has also advocated privatising the airline and a consultant has also been hired in this regard though the complete process would take a few months as the advisor has already submitted a comprehensive report in this regard.
