The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has received poor response from public relations and media management firms for its plan to improve its image by hiring a PR firm, forcing the national carrier to extend its deadline for submission of bids by 10 days.
Through advertisements in the last week of October, PIA had invited bids from companies specialising in media management, crisis management, event management and damage control/image building.
The deadline for participating in the bidding process was Nov 17. But because of the poor response, particularly from reputed PR firms, the PIA management has now extended the deadline till Nov 27.
“Hardly any reputed PR firm is interested in taking part in the bidding process, considering that PIA is a ‘dead product’ to sell,” an official of a well-known PR company told the media.
“We have extended the bidding date till Nov 27 because we want more PR firms to participate in it,” PIA spokesman told the media.
Some senior PIA officials termed the move a ‘futile exercise’ on which a staggering amount would be spent.
Expressing surprise over the plan, a PIA official wondered as to how could the management think of engaging a PR firm when the organisation was in a huge financial mess.
