PIA, as it exists, is not serving the public and is only staying afloat on taxpayers’ money
ISLAMABAD: This is with reference to your report on yet another strike by PIA pilots and their financial demands from an airline with surplus staff, dwindling revenues and a fleet grounded through sheer corruption and incompetence.
The national airline, funded by taxpayers, was created to serve the travelling public. Instead it has now become hostage to its surplus employees.
The problems with PIA have multiplied, with the top management, instead of providing good leadership, indulging in appointing incompetent and controversial people.
Corruption has become institutionalised and an overstaffed airline has been burdened with surplus employees and foreign postings given solely on political recommendations.
Following the 2013 change in the government, it was expected that the national airline would be handed over to a competent and qualified management with integrity. Instead, what happened was business as usual, with the whole aviation industry handed to an individual, whose sole qualifications were that he had served in the Pakistan Air Force and later ran a ground handling agency.
The time has come for PIA, which is technically insolvent, to be shut down, or to be handed over to a new management with powers of hiring and firing. PIA, as it exists, is not serving the public and is only staying afloat on taxpayers’ money.
Rashid Orakzai
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2014.
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