Our national carrier is in dire trouble. As if its woes weren’t enough, it has been hit by strikes of its employees, lately, who are restive on the government’s decision to privatise it. The umpteen problems that confront PIA today did not occur in a trice. Successive governments are responsible for the mess which it finds itself landed in today. There has been a overall decay and deterioration in almost every department of our national carrier over the years. Its safety standards have fallen considerably. Its planes have not been flying on time. The attitude of its ground and crew staff with the passengers is discourteous. Its aircraft have aged and since its non-developmental expenditure surpass its earnings it is simply not in a position to replace them by buying new aircraft. Why was it at its zenith when persons like Air Marshal Nur Khan and Air Marshal Asghar Khan were heading it? It was only because they ran it like a purely commercial entity free from any political interference from any quarter. Time was when PIA had occupied pride of place among the airlines of the world. It was second to none when it came to punctuality, ground and crew service. Didn’t it raise many airlines of the Middle East who have now left PIA far behind in every department of airline industry? The following incident would illustrate its care to ensure timely departures and arrivals of its aircrafts. The then governor of the then East Pakistan Mr Monim Khan was booked in a PIA flight from Karachi to Dacca. He reached the airport only fifteen minutes after the departure time to find that the plane didn’t wait for him and had taken off. He complained to the then president Ayub Khan about the incident on which the president sought comments of the then chairman PIA Asghar Khan who politely told the president that he expected that the president would appreciate the fact that the national carrier was so much punctual in the observance of its time schedule that its pilots don’t delay the flights even for fifteen minutes by waiting for a VVIP like the governor.
Not only is the PIA overstaffed as compared to other leading airlines of the world, it is manned by inefficient and incapable workforce most of which has been recruited not on merit but on political basis. The politicians have wangled appointments of their blue-eyed boys in the national carrier. There are many employees of PIA who fear that after privatisation they might be hung out to dry by their new employers. Hence the present restiveness among them. They also apprehend that the present rulers might sell the national carrier cheaply to their near and dear ones.
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