A good deal for PIA

Some see the deal with the Turkish airline as the deathknell of the airline, the final blow to its declining fortunes.

The media is full of news about a ‘deal’ between PIA and Turkish airline Turk Hava Yolari (THY). It seems PIA has ‘sold’ THY its ‘rights’ to fly to the US. Some see this as the deathknell of a once-great airline, the final blow to its steeply declining fortunes. There may be some truth to that, but the view sounds extreme. My understanding is that PIA and THY will ‘code-share’ on the Istanbul-JFK sector and possibly other points in the US, flying THY aircraft non-stop. Since no matter what we do in terms of security, and even though PIA was the first customer of the Boeing 777-200 Long-Range (LR) specifically purchased to fly non-stop from Pakistan to the US East Coast, America will not give us rights to fly non-stop to its cities. We will still have to stop at Manchester, westbound, for a full security check. We must accept this reality. In that light, this ‘deal’ may not be unambiguously bad. Yes, it seems like a loss of prestige to ‘give up’ a route as valuable as ‘slots’ at JFK. But PIA will still have an impressive international network, serving Europe (now adding Barcelona), the Gulf and the Far East and it seems, soon, Sydney, Australia. The LR will continue to fly non-stop to Canada.

The Turks are great friends of Pakistan. They are Muslims and supportive, but pro-West and pro-Europe as well. They have a secular modern society where traditions and western ways coexist. It is a society to be emulated.Women walk about freely, the elderly dressed in long dresses and the young in jeans, with or without head-scarves. Women are visible in the workforce and hold high positions including, in the past, that of prime minister (Mrs Tansu Chiller). No one stares. Everyone seems to mind their own business. You can buy wine, if that is your fancy. You can also pray in the beautiful Blue Mosque, the only one in the world with more than four minarets. What is probably most liked by the West is that any jihadi trouble is put down ruthlessly. The army has taken over in the past, but if Turkey is to ever join the European Union and adopt the euro, the army knows to stay put.

The only incongruity I found in an otherwise free, progressive country was that YouTube was banned. Turkey is one of the few countries where saying you are a Pakistani brings a smile to people’s faces. Turkey has a vibrant economy which has defeated the scourge of chronic high inflation — usually at around 80 per cent per annum with wages and prices indexed to inflation, but the exchange rate free to adjust downward, which it did like a falling rock. That was the only way to stay competitive. Today, inflation is in the single digits and the economy is surging. Turkey is classified as a ‘middle-income’ country with negligible poverty.

THY is a good airline for PIA to code-share with, although their safety record is not spotless, with the most recent accident in Amsterdam, Holland on approach when the aircraft ‘stalled’ (stopped flying because of low speed) despite there being three pilots in the cockpit. It seems that there is a crescendo of opposition building up against the arrangement. A PIA captain friend of mine is very upset and has asked me to join in opposing it. I am torn because, on the one hand, unless the deal is shady and underhand, I don’t think it is all bad. On the other hand, I respect his opinions and share his concerns. The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Defence has raised objections and the Civil Aviation Authority has also jumped into the act. The fact is that most airlines today code-share. The Qatar flight from Pakistan to Washington DC is code-shared, with United Airlines now merged with Continental. The Scandinavian Airlines flight from Washington DC to Copenhagen, Denmark is also code-shared. Whatever the government does, they need to be open, upfront, transparent and show, at the very minimum, how this arrangement will help stem PIA’s staggering losses.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2011.