The rise in airline accidents and bird hits at airports point to the failures of the CAA
LAHORE: This is with reference to the trivial compensation announced by the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) for next of kin who lost their lives while travelling from Chitral to Islamabad on December 7. These were passengers who paid to travel safely; those funds were used for the salaries of the chairman, directors, general managers, pilots, and engineers of PIA. Similarly, taxes levied on passengers fund the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which is required to ensure that airlines regulated by it are airworthy and meet safety standards required by ICAO.
Aviation safety and public interest are compromised, just like the supply of adulterated milk, working of rail and road transportation, provision of basic health and every other facet involving the public because of the corruption-nfected bureaucracy, nepotism and equally corrupt political elite with their greed-motivated conflicts of interest. It is failure of the state to enforce strict regulatory oversight, which has endangered public interest and basic fundamental rights. The rise in airline accidents and bird hits at airports point to the failures of the CAA and the state more than airline operators.
All employees of PIA are there to serve revenue clients but it is shocking that the compensation announced for next of kin who perished on board PK661 is less than two months’ take home salary, inclusive of allowances, of senior pilots working on LPRs in the national airline. For an airline surviving on dole-outs from the federal government, austerity measures must be confined to administrative costs, audited procurement and leasing and cutting down top heavy management dominated by mediocrity.
It is a contradiction that while the Federal Board of Revenue and the federal government levy a reduced tax rate through an SRO for the cockpit crew based on the argument that their earning period is restricted by medical fitness requirements, they are the only category of employees rehired on contracts beyond the national age of retirement, which is 60 years. Is flight safety not being compromised? The national age of retirement in a country is based on the average age of mortality, quality of medical facilities available on a 24-7 basis, environmental conditions, nutrition quality and prevailing law and order.
It is time to restore PIA’s credibility to the level it enjoyed under Nur Khan by taking concrete steps to enforce administrative discipline, merit in recruitment and ordering a complete forensic audit of all recruitments carried out during the past three decades.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, January 25th, 2017.
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