Wider skies

If new airlines can actually get an operation in place, then this would obviously be excellent news.

There may be more passenger airplanes whizzing across our skies from city to city next year. According to a report in this newspaper, the ‘go ahead’ has been granted to three new airlines, Bhoja Airlines, Indus Airlines and Pearl Airlines, to operate domestic routes, coming into direct competition with the carriers already plying these routes: including PIA and Air Blue. The argument runs that there is an increase in demand for air travel, generated both by the increase in people travelling between cities and the rapid collapse of Pakistan Railways. The question, however, is whether we can actually sustain the presence of more airlines given that PIA, once the pride of the skies, is already running at huge losses with long delays and inefficient services marring its functioning. The worst conspiracy theories suggest that the decline of PIA has been orchestrated to make room for the new airlines and that licenses have been granted only with the connivance of government members. Other circles deny this.

It may be hard to determine quite what the truth is. Certainly there is little real reason to have confidence in the integrity of those handing out contracts and doing deals with businessmen. But what we need as citizens is an airline that actually runs. In this context, the reasons for PIA’s ill-health need to be carefully considered. It can be said that it would be wiser to try and heal it rather than put new airlines in the skies. This is all the more so given the problems with the private carriers that are already in the air. Issues of safety and efficiency both exist. If the businessmen involved in the latest deals can actually get an operation in place that provides the kind of service we require, this would obviously be excellent news. The fear, however, is that this will not happen and instead we will have even more chaos, as the Civil Aviation Authority tries to regulate the increasingly crowded skies and the complications created by the setting up of new airlines, especially as we cannot be sure of standards.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2011.