Pakistan

PIA: New management struggles to take control

Union leaders seeking lucrative positions, ‘selling’ flights to employees.

Tufail Ahmed March 14, 2011

KARACHI:

Nearly a month after taking charge, the new management team of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has not yet been able to assert itself against the influence of the powerful unions and other interest groups at the national airline.

Nadeem Yusufzai, formerly of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), was appointed managing director of PIA on February 11 after the forced resignation of his predecessor Ejaz Haroon following a six day strike by the pilots union that left the airline with over Rs1 billion in losses.

The strike was ostensibly called to protest a potential codeshare agreement between PIA and Turkish Airlines, which would allegedly have resulted in PIA giving up its routes to Europe and North America to Turkish Airlines while redirecting its fleet to expand flights to East Asia and Australia. The ministry of defence, the majority shareholder of the PIA, denied any agreement took place but the pilot’s union continued its agitation until Haroon was forced to resign.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the joint action committee – the umbrella group of employees’ unions that led the strike effort – began pressuring the new PIA head as soon as he took his position. Among items on their wish-list were appointments to lucrative positions for some of the leading members of the committee and their associates.

Among other favours being demanded by union leaders are the expansion of the top level of PIA’s management team, which had been cut down by Haroon in order to reduce redundancy and waste. The union wants five general manager positions, a level that Haroon had cut down completely.

Many of the PIA officers appointed by Haroon are either being sidelined or replaced completely. Union leaders are reportedly pressuring Yusufzai to replace the heads of the airline’s engineering, marketing, human resources and flight services departments. Yusufzai has been handed a list of preferred candidates by the unions to replace the officers currently occupying these positions.

Other union leaders are allegedly seeking to profit from the airline personally. Some union leaders who have acquired positions of influence are now reportedly soliciting bribes from their junior colleagues to be assigned on the crews of lucrative international slights, a process euphemistically referred to inside the airline as ‘selling flights’.

The managing director is also reportedly under severe pressure from union leaders to cease investigations of allegations of corruption against pilots and other employees. Union leaders also insist that any files pertaining to the investigations be handed over to them, presumably for destruction.

Sources inside the airline describe the state of PIA as one of administrative paralysis in the face of billions of rupees in mounting losses and unions exercising an inordinate degree of influence.

The chaos is beginning to affect PIA flights and passengers. A PIA flight to Kuala Lumpur was recently forced to land by Indonesian Air Force jets because the flight operations department of the airline had failed to request permission to cross Indonesian airspace on the way to Malaysia. The flight eventually made it to Kuala Lumpur after several hours in Indonesia.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2011.

COMMENTS (2)

Grace | 13 years ago | Reply Pakistanis always prefer to travel PIA over any other airline, even when they live abroad. My father was travelling to London from the United States. He still insisted on taking a PIA flight though it was more expensive and involved more stops to avail the flight. Unless our blind love for PIA changes, the management and the employees will continue to take advantage of the blind loyalty that expatriate Pakistanis have to PIA. PIA has to change by reigning in the unions and the large number of redundant staff.

Zazi | 13 years ago | Reply I am saddened by internal jobbery since the appointment of the new MD. I believe that Mr. Zardari's Government more so than others before them, are responsible for lot of PIA's woes. 1. They injected more than 5000 PPP supporters, with no merit, into PIA in last 3 years. Payroll, which was excessive before is outrageous now. 2. Staff morale has taken a nose dive as employees witnessed at close hand how a group of senior management tried to strip the airlines revenues by selling routes, that would have bankrupted the airline and led to huge job losses. Jobs and careers are sacrosanct to anyone, and why not. Just look at the PM and Rehman Malik's performance and ask why they have not been fired. So employees have a fight for their rights and jobs. 3. Internally, PIA policies, processes, controls and audit are rotten. Adherence to them is lacking. No one is disciplined for violating rules so a general attitude of 'devil may care" is promoting unhealthy practices. 4. Management, unions and Government (as the major shareholder) should begin an orderly process of reducing non-operational overheads starting with each cost line in the budget. It should do so and achieve staffing levels of 150 personnel per aircraft in a steady manner over say 5 years. Right now it is close to 700 per aircraft. Unions should buy into this program otherwise they will not have an Airline left to work. 5. Mr. Yusufzai may be a good man personally. However, at this juncture PIA lies in life support and I hope the MD is his own man. That he has a vision to run a huge organization undergoing stress and crisis. This is not a job any boots can fill. PIA needs a person who loves aviation, breathes aviation and lives aviation. A special breed of turn-around man who can restructure the airline without disrupting its daily operations and not allow interference from the Govt or its officials. 6. Corruption cases against anyone and everyone, past and present, should be recommended to the CJ of the four Provincial High Courts to be dealt with fairly and truthfully without malice so that justice may be done and seen to be done. This will serve as a deterrent against illicit practices and regenerate a desire to succeed among the employees. 7. All policies and audits should be transparent, promptly done and deficiencies corrected. Audits should also review each department's staffing adequacy, its knowledge of policies and any illicit practices and behaviors stamped out with an iron fist. Everyone should be morally responsible for his or her colleagues’ practices, not fearing to speak out when needed. Everyone should dress and behave impeccably demonstrating an organization's culture. They should all stand out and represent PIA’s culture as it once did. 8. I can go on and on.., I am quite passionate about PIA because I believe it is an organization that can be saved and revived into a much bigger airline, like Emirates offering thousands of Pakistanis an honest day’s job, a fair salary and a career. Otherwise they will be working for foreigners or emigrating all their life.

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