Muhammad Javed
According to a report published on 17/4/2014 PIA has been issued a final warning by Saudi Civil Aviation for clearance of unpaid dues or else all of its flights will be halted.
About three years back a PIA Haj Flight from Islamabad was heavily fined for ignoring the Saudi CCA last timing for landing, landed at Jeddah Airport about 15-18 hours late. The flight took off from Islamabad so many hours late because it had to wait for free VVIP loaders. Iftikhar Mohammad Choudhry took a suo moto notice of it, perhaps with main haj corruption case. He ordered recovery of this amount from all those free loaders and deposit it in the national exchequer. According to published reports the then Interior Minister Rehman Malik approached the Saudi Prince how Iftikhar Choudhary was a bad man when the Prince paid that entire amount. Rehman Malik brought this bowel begged amount and compliance report was submitted before Choudhary. Choudhary despite knowing all this did not question if it was not a contempt of court as court order was to recover from the concerned free loaders to establish a deterrent for future and not just make the loss good by tactfully fooling the Apex Court.
Now that it has been reported that PIA has earned a profit, a real profit or just a figure work gimmick is not the question here. The point is, will the Saudi dues be cleared now from the doubtful “profit” through a new “begging bowel” or through adjustment from 1.5 billion Saudi “donation”?