By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: A consortium led by Arif Habib Group has said it intends to acquire the government’s remaining 25% stake in the national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines, completing the privatisation of the loss-making airline.
The move would give the buyers full ownership and control of PIA less than three months after they paid Rs135 billion for a 75% stake in December 2025. Shahid Ali Habib, chief executive of Arif Habib Ltd, confirmed the plan in interviews with local media on Sunday, saying the group would formally notify the government of its intention to buy the additional shares. “Their stated position is that they intend to acquire the 25 percent from the government,” Habib said.
The government has given the consortium a 90-day window ending in late April to exercise the option on the remaining stake, which is valued at about Rs45 billion. Once the decision is conveyed, the buyers will have 12 months to complete payment, meaning the full amount would be due by April 2027.The change of sponsors is scheduled for late April or early May, Habib said, allowing the new owners to install their own board and management team and operate PIA as a fully private entity without government-appointed directors.
The consortium, which won the privatisation after several rounds of bidding, values the entire airline at Rs180 billion. It comprises Fatima Fertiliser with a 34.1% share, Fauji Fertiliser with 33.9%, Lake City with 16% and a partnership between The City School and the AKD (Aqeel Karim Dhedhi) Group holding the remaining 16%. The buyers have said they will inject Rs125 billion to support the turnaround, giving the new board financial room to restructure operations, rebrand the airline and raise additional capital.
PIA has been haemorrhaging money for years, accumulating more than $2.8 billion in losses. Successive governments tried and failed to fix the carrier, which has been plagued by chronic mismanagement, political interference, overstaffing and heavy debt. The airline was converted into a public limited company in 2016 under the Pakistan International Airlines (Conversion) Act and was formally delisted from the Pakistan Stock Exchange in May 2024 after approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of the newly created PIA Holding Company Ltd, set up in March 2024 to handle the privatisation process.
Habib said the group’s priority once in full control would be to improve customer service, strengthen safety and security standards, enhance staff performance and upgrade the airline’s outdated ticketing systems. One immediate focus will be increasing flight frequencies on commercially viable routes. “Routes that currently operate only two flights every two weeks could be expanded to as many as six flights per week,” he said. “This would significantly improve passenger convenience and availability.”
PIA currently operates 18 aircraft, some of which require capital expenditure to bring back into service. Habib said six or seven more could be made operational relatively quickly with additional investment. The medium-term target is to grow the fleet to 38 aircraft, though no firm timeline has been set. Leasing brand-new planes is not an option in the short term because delivery slots from manufacturers are booked until 2030-2032, he said. As an interim measure, the airline will look to acquire relatively modern aircraft around eight to 10 years old from Boeing or Airbus. “If orders are placed now, Boeing or comparable models, as well as Airbus aircraft in the seven-to-ten-year range, could be secured to stabilise and expand short-term operations,” Habib said.
Once one of Asia’s most respected carriers when it was founded in 1955, PIA’s reputation suffered badly after a 2020 pilot licensing scandal that led to flight bans by the European Union, Britain and the United States. The bans were later lifted, giving the airline a chance to rebuild. The new owners hope that full private control, freed from bureaucratic interference, will allow them to turn around the carrier that for decades was a symbol of national pride but more recently became a symbol of Pakistan’s economic troubles.
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