The reported sale of PIA to the Arif Habib Consortium for about PKR 135 billion is being talked about as a fix for red ink. But who actually feels the “fix”? Usually not the policymakers. It’s the lower middle class.
By Raham Dil
Privatizing Pakistan International Airlines — and public services like it — isn’t just a line-item in a budget. It’s a decision that lands in people’s lives. The reported sale of PIA to the Arif Habib Consortium for about PKR 135 billion is being talked about as a fix for red ink. But who actually feels the “fix”? Usually not the policymakers. It’s the lower middle class.
For decades the story about PIA was the same: mismanagement, political meddling, rising losses. Fine — reform was needed. But handing the airline to private owners is an easy shortcut if the goal is to move liabilities off the state books. It’s cheaper on paper. On the ground, it looks very different. Jobs get cut. Long-held benefits vanish. Security at work — the kind a family plans around — disappears overnight. For households already squeezed by inflation, that’s not an abstract policy change. It’s a personal crisis.
Then there’s the question of access. A private, profit-driven airline will naturally trim routes and raise fares to protect margins. Who pays for that? Students, small-business owners, teachers, and overseas workers who depend on affordable flights. The routes that connect smaller cities — the ones that don’t make flashy profits but matter for people’s lives — are the first to go.
If privatization is really about progress, then the people it affects must be part of the plan. That means clear regulations, public scrutiny, and enforceable labor protections — not just promises. Otherwise we risk trading one set of problems for another: fewer public losses on balance sheets, but more economic insecurity, deeper inequality, and a growing distrust of institutions.
Privatization can work. But only if it’s done with care — with transparency, with safeguards for workers, and with an eye to keeping essential services affordable. Otherwise it’ll be remembered not as reform, but as a cost shifted onto those who can least afford it.
Read: Stalled Progress, Stalled Economy
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Raham Dil is based in Sukkur city of Sindh. Email: rahamdil.bscsf22@iba-suk.edu.pk
