Islamabad, July 23, 2025: The Privatisation Commission has told the Senate Standing Committee on Privatization that the process to privatize Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is now moving forward under a revised plan. The new plan asks the buyer to invest Rs70 billion over the next five years.
During the meeting, Secretary Usman Akhtar Bajwa said that the pre-qualified bidders started their due diligence through a Virtual Data Room on July 14. Site visits and expert briefings on aircraft and routes will begin next week to help bidders understand the airline’s current situation.
Four bidders have been approved by the Privatization Commission’s board. Two of them are consortia; one group including Lucky Cement, Hub Power Holdings, Kohat Cement, and Metro Ventures and the second group includes Arif Habib Corporation, Fatima Fertilizer, City Schools, and Lake City Holdings.
The other two approved bidders are Fauji Fertilizer Company and Air Blue (Pvt.) Limited.
As per the revised business model, the winning bidder must spend Rs.70 billion over five years to improve the airline.
Bajwa also informed the committee that PIA will restart flights to Manchester on August 14, after the UK ended a five-year ban. However, he pointed out that there are still security concerns related to PIA’s flights to North America, and work is being done to solve them.
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He further said that the government will give tax exemptions on aircraft purchases to attract investors. He further shared that the government has been investing Rs. 100 billion every year just to keep PIA running. The services of the previous financial advisor have also been hired again to help with the privatization process.
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During the meeting, the committee was also told that a consortium including ASIL, Serene Air, Bahria Foundation, Mega C&S Holding, and Equitas Capital LLC has been disqualified as it failed to meet the requirements.
The qualified bidders have now been given access to the Virtual Data Room. A pre-bid conference will be held soon to finalise the bidding documents.
