Attire does not an airline make!

New uniforms for PIA’s cabin crew are sure to make a splash. But all that jazz will be lost among the shoddy interior of the aircraft shouting for a makeover. The big bosses need to invest in fixing the worn-out seats, rickety tray tables, worn-out carpets, chipped paint and dodgy devices for in-flight entertainment that oftentimes won’t work. More importantly, the attitude of flight attendants requires an overhaul. Most appear jaded and bored. Accountability from top to bottom in running the national flag carrier is what can bring back PIA’s glory days we all are nostalgic for.

Take South Korea. It was one of the countries that sought PIA’s help in setting up its national airline. Recently, the daughter of Korean Air’s chairman was sentenced to one year in prison after South Korea’s transport ministry found her violating the country’s aviation safety law, which states that passengers should not cause disturbances, including using violent language or yelling, for safety reasons.

Flight 86 was ready to fly when Heather Cho, herself a vice-president of Korean Air, lost her temper after a flight attendant placed some macadamia nuts in front of her as she sat in first class. Furious that he had not followed protocol and presented them in a dish, she screamed at the attendant and told him to bring out the company’s in-flight service manual so he could read the proper nut-handling guidelines. When he failed to find it, Cho ordered him to get off the flight. Without giving the 250 passengers on-board a warning, the pilots decided to give in to her demands and return to the airport to drop off the attendant, delaying the flight by around 20 minutes.

The woman’s entitled actions caused uproar in South Korea where the media called the 40-year-old a “princess”. Cho was forced to resign as Korean Air’s vice-president and the repentant woman gave a public apology for her outburst. Bowing her head in shame, she made a grovelling apology for exploding with rage after her snack was served in a bag. She told reporters in an almost inaudible, trembling voice that she was “sorry”, adding “I sincerely apologise”. Now hear this: instead of defending his daughter for her haughty act, Cho’s father and the airline chairman publicly called her behaviour “foolish” and said that he regretted that he didn’t raise her better.

Just stop! Let me take you back to our national airline, PIA, and how the VIPs behave as if they own the airline. They delay flights for hours, wasting not only the valuable time of the sitting passengers but also the bankrupt PIA’s money and resources. Yet, they have been getting away with this for years. There’s no punishment, there are no consequences and there are no apologies from these shameless freeloaders.

The big bosses at PIA, who have neither spine nor courage or ethics, make lame excuses when VIPs delay flights, saying that flights are delayed due to ‘technical reasons’, which we all know is not true. Instead of having the guts to stand up to VIPs and flying the plane on time rather than waiting for their ‘highnesses’ to show up and then take off, the captain should be bold enough to unilaterally take the decision to fly the plane at the appointed time. But pilots are afraid of political reprisals and of getting sacked. Critics of Captain (retd) Shujaat Azeem, adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on aviation, say he is unfit for the job. His chief qualification being that he is the brother of PML-N bigwig Tariq Azeem.

The Nawaz government had a rare opportunity to fix the financial crisis bedevilling PIA. But the cat and mouse game between the prime minister and the Supreme Court over high-level appointments in PIA further damaged the airline’s reputation. Remember, the Supreme Court removed/censured Shujaat Azeem, the prime minister’s appointee. But the prime minister put him back on the job. Why make controversial appointments? Already PIA is plagued with political appointees stuffed in jobs that do not match their professional expertise.

South Korea copied Pakistan’s five-year plan in the 1950s. Compare where the two countries are today. End VIP culture and all will be well in Pakistan, too. PIA should be the test case.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2015.

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