Some loss, some gain

The national airline has decided to welcome passengers on board with the Qaseeda Burda Sharif playing in the background instead of soft music.

These are just some of the changes that the new management has made. For any national airline to succeed and become profitable, all that is required is a sufficient number of available revenue passengers and the grant of bilateral traffic rights for foreign airlines to be negotiated safeguarding the vital revenue interests of the local industry.

There exists an annual market of almost 13.5 million ethnic Pakistani origin revenue passengers on domestic and international routes to fill a fleet of over 50 Long Range and Medium Range aircraft. For this we would need a competent and professional management.

Unfortunately, since 1990, every government has been captive to conflict of interest and has granted traffic rights to Gulf based airlines to the disadvantage of PIA. To add to this from 2008, an already surplus staffed PIA was burdened with almost 661 employees with fake degrees in every cadre.

The then MD, an O-Level pass, was held responsible for gross irregularities in recruitment of the 1995 batch of pilots, technicians and cabin crew in an investigation conducted by AVM Mushaf Ali Mir on the orders of the Ministry of Defence. That MD today is included in the List of 172 placed on ECL.

The first step to restructure PIA is to cleanse it of rotten eggs. It goes to the credit of this management that they have sacked almost 331 such employees including 200 ghost employees who were on payroll of PIA since 2007 courtesy different political godfathers.

While military aviation works on a command and control structure with focus on achieving the mission’s target, commercial aviation is a highly regulated industry subject to both national regulatory agency of the country of registration and in every country where it lands or in whose airspace it flies.

Apart from airworthy aircraft, reliability of published schedules and meeting customer demand, providing passenger comfort, with proper hygienic quality food to the taste of the individual passengers, inflight entertainment, with focus on safe travel and reliability of schedules is the primary objective while complying with regulatory controls elaborated by ICAO and making sure that both passengers and their baggage are insured for any eventuality.

Mediocrity, incompetence and conflict of interest have damaged PIA. There are many such instances. For example, it is an accepted international industry practice to have a choice of manufacturer recommended vendors located along the airline’s route structure.

One Director Engineering and later on DMD Operations and Engineering was instrumental in cancelling all such vendor contracts and appointing an unknown vendor located in remote part of UK. This resulted in rise in maintenance costs and compromises which finally resulted in sanctions imposed by European Union on part of our fleet. A case of personal benefit over national interest.

In 2011, the same criminal mistake was made by another MD and his Director Procurement appointed a single unknown vendor located in Dubai. Almost half of PIA’s fleet was grounded because of these policies.

It is not just pilots, cabin crew or technicians of PIA who managed to get recruited in PIA with fake degrees or qualification from institutions lacking recognition but also senior people in the management of rank of GM and DGM.

PIA’s downslide started when AM Nur Khan resigned because of interference in procurement, appointments, foreign postings and lease/induction of aircraft. The then president wanted to appoint his close relative as Country Manager America and as head of Hotel Roosevelt, owned by PIA Investment, a subsidiary of the airline.

With the exception of AM Nur Khan who successfully managed to make PIA one of leading airlines of Asia, no officer has succeeded to run this airline efficiently.

Both Saigol and Nur Khan were appointed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and given a free hand with no political interference. Nur Khan appointed and recruited the best qualified persons with experience in commercial aviation who made PIA a profitable entity.

The present management has plans to restart routes that were abruptly closed by the previous management to benefit airlines based in Gulf.

It must understand that it requires one month at least for launching a marketing campaign to fill seats before starting the flight, otherwise seats will go empty.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2019.

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