PIA passengers in limbo as strike continues

Frustrated ticketholders face off against protesting PIA employees at BBIA

RAWALPINDI:

Frustrated passengers on Saturday locked horns with protesting PIA employees at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport Islamabad after they found their flights cancelled.

Over two dozen passengers holding PIA tickets held a demonstration in which they chanted slogans against protesting PIA employees, blaming them for their ordeal. Passengers, mostly blue-collar expats in the Gulf, said they risked being sacked if they did not get back to work on time.

They demanded that the government provide them with alternatives for the cancelled PIA flights.



The PIA protesters responded with slogans against the government. The police and the Airport Security Force (ASF) had to intervene to prevent a clash between the two groups of protesters.

Sohail Mukhtar, president of the People’s Unity PIA labour union, calmed down the passengers, claiming that the federal government was to blame for flight cancellations.

At least 46 PIA flights scheduled to fly to and from BBIA on Saturday had been cancelled by the time this report was filed, as the employees’ strike continued into its fifth day.

A PIA spokesperson said the national flag carrier had incurred losses of around three billion rupees due to the strike.

Protesting employees reached the airport at around 11am in a rally and started their sit-in outside the airport.

Representatives of the workers’ joint action committee addressed the protesters, saying the protest would continue till the government dropped its plan to privatise the airline.

The joint action committee said the protest would continue on Sunday as well, thanking the participants for coming to the sit-in on the weekend.

No prominent political figure visited the protest sit-in on Saturday. Representatives of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) visited the camp and expressed solidarity with the protesting employees.

AWP Rawalpindi-Islamabad Secretary Ammar Rashid sang Dastoor, a revolutionary poem by Habib Jalib, and played guitar to enthral the sit-in participants.

Rashid said AWP was against the privatisation of PIA and supported the strike. He said the party would work to protect the rights of workers and labourers.



No airline for PIA passengers

Meanwhile, passengers said the government claims of arrangements with other airlines to transport PIA passengers have not materialised.

PIA ticket holders said no airline was willing to accept their tickets as had been claimed by PIA management. They said private airlines are demanding extra charges from PIA ticket holders.

Domestic and international passengers were compelled to buy tickets from private airlines at high rates while struggling to find regulators at the airport to lodge complaints about the high fares.

Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Public Relations Joint Director Fariha Tahir Shah told The Express Tribune on Friday that under the National Civil Aviation Policy 2015, it was the domain of the Competition Commission of Pakistan to check airline fares.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2016.