‘Load’-shedding?: PIA sacks deputy chief amid political reservations

KARACHI:

Cash-strapped Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Tuesday sacked Deputy Managing Director Salim Sayani after succumbing to pressure from parliamentarians wary of his high perks, officials said.

Sayani’s removal comes in the wake of criticism levelled by the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Defence, which saw his monthly pay as a burden on the already loss-incurring national carrier. His exit also comes just weeks after the appointment of former Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman as the new MD.

Sayani’s monthly salary at PIA was said to be an exorbitant $50,000 (Rs4.7 million). While PIA’s spokesman refused to confirm that Sayani earned more than the carrier’s managing director, disgruntled employees have been leaking documents to the media regarding his pay and the perks. The highest paid official in the airline was, however, already getting a sizeable monetary compensation for his services before joining PIA. His highly-paid services were sought to help turn the carrier around. A former American Airlines executive, Sayani was tasked with revamping PIA’s Maintenance and Repair Overall (MRO) department. His job was to woo regional airlines into getting their aircraft fixed at PIA’s MRO unit.

His experience was, however, unable to turn the airline’s fortune around.

The airline failed to bring in any substantial business since his appointment in July 2009, which greatly irked members of the standing committee.

One of Sayani’s close aides blames the government for its failure in investing money in the maintenance department. “It will not be able to attract any business if there are no tools and machinery to repair the planes. And we have nothing.”

Sayani was hired during the tenure of former managing director Aijaz Haroon, who himself was mired in a number of controversies. Haroon was shown the door after unions went on an unprecedented boycott against his plan to enter into a codeshare agreement with a Turkish carrier. Codesharing is a route-sharing mechanism which allows for single bookings across multiple airlines.

Before his appointment, Sayani was interviewed by then finance minister Shaukat Tarin and defence minister Ahmed Mukhtar. He was also a part of the negotiating team which clinched a deal for the purchase of five Boeing 777 aircraft on behalf of PIA. The deal was said to be a landmark achievement as the planes were purchased without government guarantees despite the company’s weak financial standing.

Successive CEOs of the carrier, from Tariq Kirmani and Zafar Ahmed Khan to Aijaz Haroon, have all complained about too much political interference in the airline’s affairs. Almost all of them wanted to lay off over 20,000 employees of the PIA, which boasts of one of the highest workers-to-plane ratio. The company has gone through two dozen general managers, 12 board directors and two managing directors in the past two years.


Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2012.