Pakistan

Improving PIA’s service: ‘Perk up in-flight menu, entertainment’

Senate standing committee stresses a third-party evaluation should be conducted to improve service standards.

Peer Muhammad January 23, 2011

ISLAMABAD: The Senate standing committee on culture and tourism on Saturday directed the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to revise its on-board menu and in-flight entertainment, questioning the current sub-standard offerings.

“PIA’s standard and quality of entertainment programs and the food served on flights has gone down the drain and is in a very pathetic condition,” said Nilofar Bakhtiar, chairperson of the standing committee.

Expressing dissatisfaction, the chairperson directed PIA to improve its performance while dealing with flight delays, especially the provision of food in such circumstances. She informed the committee that she had recently filed a complaint with chairman PIA regarding a flight that was delayed in China for 24 hours. Stranded passengers, who had to endure freezing weather, were not properly looked after and were served meager quantities of sub-standard food. The airline did not even have milk and sugar for the stranded passengers, she added.

Member of the committee, Senator Pervez Rashid stressed that a third party evaluation should be conducted to improve the standard of in-flight food and entertainment. He said a weekly evaluation report should be given to the media about the improvements being made in the airline’s services.

The committee also directed PIA to improve its services on all routes saying that some routes, on which primarily the labourers travel, are permanently neglected. “PIA needs to focus on route and menu planning,” Nilofar said.

The committee also recommended that all foreign airlines operating in Pakistan should run Pakistan’s tourism documentaries and observed that some foreign airlines also provided sub-standard services on Pakistani routes.

Besides Nilofar and Rashid, the meeting was attended by senators Muhammad Kazim Khan, Salahuddin Dogar and Abdul Khaliq Pirzada.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2011.

COMMENTS (8)

Affzaal Khan.M | 13 years ago | Reply If it is in the private sector 'PIA will certainly revive to its previous Grand status of the 60's. Most enviable model is the nearby based Qatar Airways .Superb service with a touch of class. spotless aircraft ,on the dot take-off's and a business class that is par excellence .PIa has to strive for that affzaal

Mohammed Rehman | 13 years ago | Reply I think they should change there business class its alot different to other airlines and not that good and improve there food menu and the entertainment like kids films, hollywood movies, english music and pakistani music and games and they really need to improve there Airbus A310.

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Affzaal Khan.M | 13 years ago | Reply PIA ( Pain In A...) should be closed down , .it is a disaster waiting to happen , unfit aircraft , interior reek of Odour seats that collapse switches that fail to operate , food bits in every crevice no wonder there are occasional rats in them , etc. A few Years back corrupt cronies bought obsolete aircraft from Cathy Pacific ,these broke down everywhere,and were a hazard to all, UK barred them from London landings , we called it Anti Islamic Phobia ,when new aircraft were inducted these were allowed in again without fuss. we have destroyed the new planes too,ill mannered surly and ill trained staff add to the miseries. Recently travelling to the USA in business class ,i was the only paid for ticket holder ,the rest were all free loaders ,smelly people with a attitude. affzaal Khan

Tanweer Ahmed | 13 years ago | Reply Earlier, I used to specifically ask my company HR to provide me PIA tickets for my annual vacations. But I don't do that any more. Should I?

Ali | 13 years ago | Reply Privatise it!!! Only solution for PIA!!!

rosilva1 | 13 years ago | Reply For Ijaz Haroon labour route, Saudi destinationans and Pakistan destinations are cash cows. But Pakistani passengers on these PIA flights are slaves, so he serves slave food to them.

khan | 13 years ago | Reply Instead of focusing on important issues like customer service and tackling an employee to aircraft of 400:1 (one of the highest in the world) the corrupt politicians focus on the food. The reason being that the contract is held by a singaporean firm, whereas as govt want to put one of its crony companies incharge. Once again the politicians have shown that they only care about themselves and 'phony' self-created issues. The only solution for PIA is to go ahead with privatization or at least Turkish airline MOU and maybe their standards will improve.

Aneela | 13 years ago | Reply Mismanagement by cronies, have destroyed everything in PIA, be it service, flight regularity ,revenue generation or profits. Today PIA's Flight Kitchen is headed by a pilot, whose expertise is flying aircrafts or making an ommelate. You cannot improve things without having right man for the specific job, for which he is trained and qualified. PIA today is in shambles because of abuse of merit by a management that is itself devoid of any merit.

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