LAHORE - The FIA has expanded the scope of its inquiry against PIA officials after it emerged that the airline management sold an A-310 aircraft to a German company on throwaway price a few months ago.
Sources in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) claimed that the airplane had been sold and handed over to the German company even before opening of the tender.
It’s the third major corruption scandal that has surfaced in the national airline in recent months as the FIA is already conducting an inquiry for lease of A-330 and A-320 planes at inflated rates.
About the new scandal, FIA sources revealed that in October 2016 offers were sought from interested parties by December 12, 2016 for the sale A-310 plane. But the aircraft was sold even before the last date given in advertisement.
But PIA spokesman claimed the plane was in Germany to participate in an exhibition and a museum in Leipzig has expressed its desire of buying it, but it has yet not been sold and remains a PIA's property.
FIA sources said that the said aircraft was hired by a company of Malta for 10 days against payment of 210,000 Euros but the same aircraft was later sold to the German company against 45,500 Euros.
The investigation agency claims that plane was airworthy and as per annual assessment of the airline its book value was $3.51 million.
According to Senator Mandviwalla, the airplane was flight worthy and an authentic certificate was issued before it went to Malta for a movie shoot. Later on, the airplane was sent to a German museum. He said a national asset has been sold illegally as “all this was done without taking formal approval of the PIA board of directors”.
The senator demanded a thorough investigation, saying that an FIR should be registered against the PIA acting CEO who was involved in the deal.
FIA sources claimed that PIA CEO and Director Procurement were responsible for the fishy deal.
Sources claimed that airline management was dithering over providing the relevant record to investigation team.
When contacted, spokesman for PIA gave the following version:
A-310 is an old, fuel guzzling aircraft having obsolete technology and therefore only a few airlines are still operating this type of planes, that too mostly for cargo operations.
As per Pakistan's National Aviation Policy of 2015 any aircraft older than 20 years cannot fly for a Pakistani airline. PIA retired its fleet of ageing Airbus A310s on December 31, 2016. When these aircraft were grounded their average age was 24 years. This was made possible because the new aviation policy gave two years time [until March 2017] to existing operators to adjust their fleet according to new regulations.
For disposing off the four A-310 aircraft PIA initiated a tendering process in August 2016 when all these aircraft were still airworthy and being used in PIA operations.
In order to find buyers for these aircraft, PIA advertised twice - in August and November last year - but no buyer showed interest.
Currently one of the aircraft is participating in an exhibition in Germany. A museum in Leipzig has expressed its desire of buying this aircraft and keeping it in their museum in PIA's livery as a symbol of PIA's presence in Europe. But PIA has yet to take a final decision on it. So the plane is still very much PIA's property.
After the August advertisement internal approval was obtained for selling one of the four aircraft to the above mentioned museum, but soon afterwards it was decided to advertise again to find suitable buyers for all the 4 aircraft and the sale of this specific aircraft did not materialise.
The remaining three grounded A-310 aircraft are still at Karachi airport as no buyer has expressed interested in buying them.