As per reports, President Asif Ali Zardari signed the law repealing PIA privatisation bill on Friday, thus finalising all legal processes necessary for the privatisation process of Pakistan International Airlines. This bill was approved by the Senate on 10th June and by the National Assembly on 11th June, after which the president signed it to reverse the process initiated back in 2016.
The signing of the PIA privatisation bill Pakistan 2026 represents the official conclusion of a period in which successive governments had announced, postponed, and eventually succeeded in undertaking a privatisation process which has spanned well over a decade.
The Route Through the Legislature Three Days, Two Chambers, One Signing
The Senate
The Senate of Pakistan enacted the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (Conversion) (Repeal) Bill, 2026 thus passing the bill on to the National Assembly for consideration.
The National Assembly
The National Assembly enacted the bill, thus passing it out of the parliamentary process for signing by the President of Pakistan.
Presidential signature
President Asif Ali Zardari signed the bill into law, completing all required steps in the legal process necessary for privatizing PIACL.
What This Means in Reality
The privatisation bill for PIA Pakistan 2026 represents the culmination of a decade-long process. Throughout many years, the government of Pakistan had run PIA as a state-owned airline, which suffered through years of operating at a loss, aging planes, worker issues, route cuts, and government bailouts which created a strain on public coffers. In 2016, the government created the corporatisation law which served as the foundation for its privatisation plan, as it took PIA out of its previous statutory corporation framework which would enable it to privatise more easily.
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The context of the IMF programme
It is a long-standing benchmark in Pakistan’s continuing IMF Extended Fund Facility that the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, among other reforms including the privatisation of PIA, has to take place. This step marks measurable progress in an area that previous governments committed but failed to comply with, from an IMF perspective.
What Lies Ahead
Presidential consent marks the end of the process of privatising the business legally – but not the end of the process of privatising the business practically and commercially. With PIACL’s takeover by its new private owners, a fully-fledged airline with a mature route system, a diverse fleet of various ages, a sizable staff, and financial arrangements that will demand close management in order to get them in good shape, has become their property. Legally speaking, the task of exiting the state’s presence is accomplished. What lies ahead is the difficult and important task of building a successful private airline business out of what PIACL’s new owners inherited.
