The buck stops nowhere

The driver pressed hard on the brakes and the bus jolted to a sudden stop. The passengers, along with their luggage, were pushed forward. Jaded, fatigued, and perhaps frustrated by the service that they had been getting, the passengers weren’t sure why the driver of the bus on his way from the terminal to the tarmac had to push so hard on the brakes. As we looked right, it became clear. Thai Airways’ flight was slowly moving forward, headed to its runway and our bus, taking the passengers to the aircraft, was right in front. The driver was sharp, and certainly awake, and stopped the bus just in time. As the plane moved passed our bus, the left wing was just a couple of metres from the bus. The driver stopped not because of a radio signal but because of his alertness. I hope this cliffhanger experience is not a daily affair, but if it is, it should not be. In my travels across the world, even in some of the remotest parts of the world, I have never experienced the passenger bus moving (and then suddenly stopping) right in front of a plane that is about to taxi. More power to the driver for doing his job, a bar too high for so many these days.

Nearing midnight on July 21^st, this was the last part of the day-long Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) experience that we had on our way from Lahore to Islamabad. The flight that was originally supposed to leave at 7pm had not left until midnight. The problem was not just the delay, it was also the series of messages from the national carrier itself. When I got the first text message about the delay, I called to confirm and ask for a reason. I got a litany of messages that were both bizarre and contradictory. They ranged from the lady on the phone telling us that the weather in Lahore was bad (and when I told her that I was in Lahore, and that the weather was fine, she changed her story and said she “thought” that the weather was bad), to operational issues (the meaning of which the PIA operator didn’t bother to explain), to complete ignorance on the cause of the delay. The automated texts we were getting from the national carrier were not consistent with the information we were getting on the phone. Even when I told the flight information hotline operator about the texts I was getting from PIA, she feigned ignorance, had no idea that such a system existed and was no longer sure of the flight time nor the fact that it was delayed.

The bigger problem was not just the delay, but that there was no one to take responsibility. I asked around, at the check-in counter and inside the terminal, if I could speak to a manager, any PIA manager on duty, and register my frustration and complaint. Once again, I got answers that showed a poisonous mixture of apathy, incompetence and a complete lack of interest. First, I was told by a staff member that the manager had “just left”, then I was told that that there was no PIA manager at the Lahore airport, and then a series of other lame and contradictory excuses. Worse, the complaint box that was supposed to have complaint cards was empty and there were just empty wrappers and a partially eaten bags of chips there to greet me. There was just no way to register my complaint.

The problems with our national carrier are not new, and I am not the first one to express my dissatisfaction, but there is a bigger question here. Where does the responsibility ultimately reside? Where does the proverbial buck stop?

We are told that the many domestic crises are, in part, due to the problem of circular debt. But that is not the only thing that is going round in circles. Perhaps a bigger problem is circular responsibility, where nobody is willing to own up to problems and say that the buck stops with him or her. Our buck is always in circulation — passing many and stopping with none.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2017.

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