Presidential ordinance: PIA chairman seeks to pacify protesting workers

Airline’s employees say they will not allow any privatisation attempt

KARACHI: Before Pakistan International Airlines Chairman Nasser Jaffer could clear the air about a presidential ordinance issued a day earlier, around a hundred employees of the national flag carrier had already made their way into the executive floor of the airline’s empty head office on Sunday.

Holding banners and chanting slogans against the feared privatisation of PIA, they marched past framed pictures of the Lockheed Super Constellation, the DC-9 and Boeing 720B, aircraft which the airline had the distinction of flying before many others. Their chants reverberated through the paan-stained corridors which carry pictures of different political figures, the most prominent of whom is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif these days.

Although they eventually left peacefully, without skirmishing with security, the employees vowed to stage more protests and make it impossible for any such transaction to go through.

When he finally held his news conference, PIA Chairman Jaffer referred to the airline’s privatisation in many different ways but denied having knowledge of it.

"Conversion of PIA from a corporation into a limited company has nothing to do with privatisation," he insisted while referring to the ordinance that changed the status of the 60-year-old airline overnight.

But as he read the virtues of the move from a prepared statement, a part stood out where he said: "The new structure will allow the company to invite a strategic investor for improvement of PIA's management leading to more aircraft, more routes and better service for customers."

An official statement issued after the news conference omitted any mention of strategic investment, which is basically used to describe handing over of management control to a private investor.

Jaffer said the government had given his team the task of restructuring the airline. "That's something we will continue to do. Any question related to privatisation should be posed before the Privatisation Commission," he said.

But an important component of PIA's restructuring effort has already been shot down. For weeks, the PIA management had prepared a plan to convince the government to reschedule airline's Rs300 billion liability. It was rejected recently.

Jaffer said the cash-strapped government does not have the liberty to fund PIA. "As much as we want, the reality is different. We have to work under the IMF ambit."

However, the government has assured it will continue to support PIA, he said. "I would have been told to stop working if it is unwilling to support the airline."

PIA's management also realises the challenge posed by employees’ unions to any change in the airline’s status.

“Let me assure that no one is being fired. Even in case of past privatisations, employees have actually benefited," Jaffer said.

As a limited company, PIA will now be governed under the Companies Ordinance, 1984. The new entity is called Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Limited (PIACL).

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th,  2015.