ISLAMABAD (AP) — A consortium led by a Pakistani investment firm acquired a 75% stake in state-run Pakistan International Airlines on Tuesday during a televised auction, marking a major step in the government’s long-delayed effort to privatize the loss-making national carrier.
The Arif Habib consortium submitted a winning bid of 135 billion rupees ($482 million) for the majority shareholding in PIA, which was once regarded as among the region’s top airlines but has suffered decades of financial losses and mismanagement.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, speaking at the bidding ceremony, said the privatization process was transparent and competitive. He hoped that the new owners would help revive the airline.
The sale fulfills a long-standing demand by the International Monetary Fund, which has repeatedly urged Pakistan to privatize the airline as part of broader economic reforms tied to bailout programs.
The auction comes two months after PIA resumed direct flights to Europe following a decision by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency to lift a four-year ban imposed over safety concerns. The ban was introduced in 2020, after 97 people were killed when a PIA aircraft crashed in Karachi.
Once seen as a model airline, PIA has deteriorated over the years due to political interference and chronic overstaffing. The airline employs about 300 workers per aircraft across its 32 fleet — one of the highest employee-to-aircraft ratios in the industry. Most airlines operate with fewer than 200 employees per aircraft, a common benchmark of productivity.
FILE - In this June 8, 2013 photo, a Pakistani International Airline plane takes off from Benazir Bhutto airport in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File)
FILE - In this March 7, 2011 file photo, a Pakistan International Airlines passenger jet is parked on the tarmac at a military base in Makassar, Indonesia. (AP Photo, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has privately discussed the possibility of firing Attorney General Pam Bondi and replacing her with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday.
In those conversations, Trump has discussed his ongoing frustration with Bondi over her handing of the Jeffrey Epstein files and hurdles the Justice Department has encountered in investigations into Trump’s perceived enemies, the people said. The Republican president has mentioned other candidates but has raised Zeldin’s name as recently as this week, the people said.
The people were not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversations and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.
No decision has been announced, and Trump has been known to change his mind on personnel decisions.
"Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job,” Trump said in a statement produced by the White House.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, has been publicly and privately praised by Trump, who at an event in February described him as “our secret weapon.”
Bondi, a former state attorney general in Florida and a Trump loyalist who was part of his legal team during his first impeachment case, has been in her position for more than a year. She came into office pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department, but she quickly started investigations of Trump foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.
She has also endured months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files that made her the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump.
Under Bondi’s leadership, the department opened investigations into a string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan.
The high-profile prosecutions of Comey and James were quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed. Other politically charged investigations have either been rejected by grand juries or failed to result in criminal charges.
Attorney General Pam Bondi listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
