Originally posted by sigma:


That whole deal stank.

A near-bankrupt airline places a $1.X billion order for a brand new airplane line that hadn't been used in revenue service before, immediately after the US government had forgiven Pakistan of $1B in debt and even had a US bank guarantee the loan. It was a gesture of goodwill at best; there's no way PIA could have made a deal for any new planes, let alone 11 of the best in the world, if not for the US gov't.

Of course Airbus and France/UK/EU has pulled many similar stunts in the past, so I can't blame Boeing or the US for doing it.



PIA was never near bankrupt. I mean seriously, they have daily flights from JFK (via manchester U.K) to Pakistan. All those flights are fully packed and sometimes 50% overbooked. PIA is the only airline that comes Pakistan too. Pakistan has such high demand on taxes that big named airlines such as Lufthansa, KLM etc..ended up cancelling all their routes to Pakistan. So far the major airlines comming to Pakistan are Emirates, PIA and British Airways (only to Islamabad too) PIA for most has the monopoly here. They are like 70% government owned or private, I'm not sure. But all in all, PIA was never near bankrupt and they are sure as hell not pulling outa this deal. They have been saving all this money just for this, If u look at their current fleet, they operate one of the oldest 747-200's, like since 1977!!! thats insane!! Thats why they have all this money, they always leased planes (mainly cathay pacific 747-300) THey never bought new planes, up in till now. PIA is very well off. They are now expanding their routes in the U.S...latest being Houston

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