PIA chairman resigns after 6 months in office

KARACHI:

Retired Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman resigned as chairman of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Tuesday, just six months after taking responsibility of lifting the flag carrier out of its financial and management woes, officials said.

Suleman stepped down saying he was medically unfit but leaves behind a host of unanswered questions, as well as an inquiry by the Supreme Court into alleged corruption in aircraft and spare part deals in PIA.

PIA Deputy Managing Director Captain Junaid Yunus has taken over as acting chairman.

“It seems the pressure of running an airline like PIA was a bit too much for [Suleman],” said a senior airline official. “I am not sure if that was because of political compulsions to give undue favours. But in PIA, that is mostly the case.”

Suleman’s resignation makes him the seventh head to resign in eight years, making the turnover ratio of the top bosses at PIA one of the highest in state-run companies.

A spokesman for the airline said it could take few days for the government to find a replacement. There were reports about the resignation since Monday night but confirmation came in the morning, he added.

Just last week, the Supreme Court summoned Suleman on an application of the Transparency International, which had called for checking alleged embezzlement in the airline.

PIA officials are also left wondering why the resignation coincided with the beginning of the crucial Hajj season, when the flag carrier has deployed five aircraft, including two B-747 jumbos. “The resignation could have waited. I fail to understand the urgency,” said another official.

A few weeks ago, the airline had to scrap a deal to lease B 737-800 aircraft after it was reported that the company involved had flouted the leasing requirement.

There were reports that Suleman was under pressure to give up the post of chairman and settle for the office of managing director but he had refused.  Currently, the chairman also leads the day-to-day affairs of MD.

Soon after Suleman tendered his resignation, names for a possible replacement started to surface, with former Aero Asia chief Haider Jalal at the top of the list. Jalal, however, was not available for comments.

Successive CEOs of the carrier, from Tariq Kirmani and Zafar Ahmed Khan to Aijaz Haroon, have all complained about a considerable amount of political interference in the airline’s affairs.

Almost all of them wanted to lay off some over 20,000 employees of PIA, which boasts one of the highest workers-to-plane ratios.

The company has gone through two dozen general managers, 12 board directors and two managing directors in the past two years.

Earlier this year, former deputy managing director Salim Sayani had also resigned in wake of a controversy over his pay scale.

The PIA posted a loss of Rs18 billion in the first six months of 2012, up from Rs10.7 billion recorded in same period last year. The airline’s accumulated losses stand at over Rs120 billion.

It operates a fleet of 42 planes and most of them are fuel guzzlers. The last model to be inducted included the B 777s.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2012.