Crippling strike — Day 2: All flights grounded as PIA staff refuse to budge

Chaos, confusion reign supreme at airports across the country

RAWALPINDI/ PESHAWAR/ LAHORE:

Thousands of passengers were stranded as all flights of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) were grounded due to a crippling strike by its employees against the government’s plans to sell off the national carrier continued for a second consecutive day.

PIA spokesperson Daniyal Gillani confirmed that more than 100 flights were cancelled. “So far, the airline has borne a loss of more than a billion rupees,” he told The Express Tribune on Wednesday.

A day earlier, two PIA employees were killed by ‘mysterious gunshots’ when protesters clashed with riot police and paramilitary troops during a violent protest at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport.  PIA Chairman Nasser Jaffer took responsibility for the ‘brute force’ used against the demonstrators and resigned from his post.

Chaos and confusion

The Karachi airport wore a deserted look on Wednesday as the airline’s flight operations came to a standstill.

Passengers expressed annoyance and confusion brought about by the chaotic situation. A passenger, Imran Aziz, wished for the government to think about the stranded passengers like him. “Our rulers are enjoying their lives with all the luxury,” said another passenger, Anum Mirza, “but it is us, commoners, who suffer because of them.”

Only the passengers who were either not informed about the flight schedule or the ones who had not picked up their luggage were present at the airport.

But the ground staff has also joined the strike, so the passengers struggled to find without any luck a relevant officer who could tell them about the fate of their luggage.

Meanwhile, the PIA management accommodated transit passengers at the airport hotel, and arranged four Boeing 747s to bring back 2,000 stranded Umrah Zaireen from Jeddah, said the spokesperson in a statement.

As a backup plan, the PIA is also in the final stages of negotiations with Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines to facilitate passengers going to and coming from Europe and North America, he added.

Situation in the capital

A large number of protesting PIA workers gathered on Airport Road in Islamabad early in the day and started marching towards the Benazir Bhutto International Airport.

When they reached the main entrance, the Airport Security Force and the police closed the gates, following which the workers staged a sit-in outside the entrance.

Many prominent politicians met the protesters outside the airport. Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah told the protesters that Nawaz Sharif was against PIA’s privatisation when his party was not in power.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Vice-Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi called for a judicial inquiry into the killing of the two PIA workers in Karachi. Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmad and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Qamar Zaman Kaira also met the protesters.

Meanwhile, a Civil Aviation Authority official said 54 flights, 22 of them international, were delayed. He said the passengers faced a lot of problems in and outside the airport.

At Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport, the situation was no different. “I have to reach Saudi Arabia before February 5 to join work, but all flights have been cancelled,” said a passenger. “No one knows what is going to happen. The airline has not given us any assurance regarding the next flight.”

CAA spokesman Pervez George said efforts were under way to ensure timely departure of flights by other airlines. “We are also in discussions with the Competition Commission of Pakistan to check the fares being charged by the private airlines in the wake of the strike.”

Operations also remained suspended at Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport, preventing around eight flights, six of them international, from operating.

Investigation

As the two slain PIA employees – IT assistant manager Syed Inayat Hussain Rizvi and engineer Saleem Akbar – have laid to rest, investigators remain clueless about who fired the fatal gunshots. Nearly a dozen other protesters were also wounded in a clash with the law enforcers.

“We have not found any empty shells of a gun so far,” said Airport SP Chaudhry Saifullah. “We do not even have any footage, as there were no cameras installed in the vicinity.”

Moreover, police have received an application from PIA’s Joint Action Committee to register a case of the incident. The application names several politicians of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, accusing them of hatching a conspiracy that led to the death of the PIA workers.

“We are registering a case but it is not so simple, as they have named the entire Pakistan in the FIR,” explained SP Saifullah. “We are consulting legal experts and will soon register an FIR.”

Meanwhile, a sessions court has sought comments from the police over not registering the FIR. PIA’s senior pilot Sohail Baloch, who has been leading the protests, filed an application before Malir District and Sessions Judge Khalid Hussain Shahani and pleaded that the case be registered.

The judge accepted the application for hearing and issued a notice to the relevant police officer to file comments on Thursday (today).

As for the four PIA Joint Action Committee members allegedly missing since Tuesday night, Baloch told a news conference at the PIA head office that the DIG (East) had confirmed the police had not detained any of the members.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2016.