BLOOMINGTON, IL, US: It is only this year that PIA’s pre-Hajj operation has been conducted in a relatively better manner than in the previous four years when it had become a nightmare for pilgrims. This offers some hope that PIA’s fortunes may rebound. For this to occur, it is essential that those responsible for its rot should have no role in the new management of the national carrier. PIA’s record financial losses, disruption of schedules and staggering additional losses of Rs100 billion during the last four years is an indictment on the mediocrity, incompetence and lack of integrity and professional ethics of the top executives appointed by this government. Many of these appointments have been made without regard to merit, experience, professional ethics or qualification.
Commercial aviation is a very specialised field, which requires the services of the best qualified team of professionals to cope with challenges offered by a highly competitive market, which offers a choice of competitive fares, consumer-friendly schedules and minimal pilferage in procurement. What could have been worse than the fact that even Umra and Hajj passengers were fleeced by the nexus of a few marketing executives and travel agents, who created a cartel of sorts. There should be no doubt that responsibility for PIA’s failures rests with its top executives, who were at the helm when the losses occurred. Despite an assured, loyal expatriate clientele, the national carrier lost its market share through collective failure of its executives and a government which went on a loot sale of traffic rights to foreign airlines that did not provide benefits to the national airline.
The highly controversial deal with the Turkish Airlines was nothing but selling the most expensive asset of PIA, which were its routes, for peanuts. Almost half of PIA’s fleet was grounded because of lack of technical spare parts, which was a consequence of controversial selection of vendors. While PIA losses mounted and the frequency of flights came down, the national airline, against all commercial ethics, further added to its already surplus employee strength by hiring more employees in violation of merit or transparency.
There is no shortage of educated, skilled, qualified men and women in Pakistan nor any compulsion to hand PIA over to lesser qualified persons. The airline is in a nosedive and requires expertise, integrity and competence to guide it out of a mess of its own making.
Malik Tariq Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, November 10th, 2012.
