When Azam Saigol was appointed as chairman of the PIA it was said that since he belongs to the private sector who knows how to run commercial institutions things would turn around soon in the national carrier. After Air crash of a PIA plane near Havelian recently he has resigned. He has left the airlines exactly in the same condition in which he had inherited it. In the past too persons from the private sector had been chairmen of the national carrier but things didn’t improve a whit in the PIA.
After the air crash he had claimed that there was no technical fault in the ill-fated aircraft. Facts,however ,speak otherwise. The same plane had once crash landed at Lahore in 2009. About two years back the same engine which exploded in the air near Havelian had two years back developed a serious defect. Why on earth was this defective plane not grounded after these two incidents is not understandable. According to a very reliable report there are two international airlines which are notorious for extremely poor safety standards:The PIA and the Ethiopian airlines.
Time was when along with the PAN AM,BOAC and Lufthansa,the PIA were ranked as the first four best airlines of the world. It was the time when administrators llke Air Marshal Asghar Khan and Nur Khan headed the national carrier. They brooked no political interference in the affairs of national carrier. Merit and merit alone was the key word in the PIA.
Our national carrier which is going through its locust years can be revived only if any one like the above named two persons is appointed as its chairman to cut its corner and make it occupy pride of place once again in the comity of world’s carriers. What is the harm in replicating the safety standards being practised by the Australian airline QANTAS which hasn’t met with any accident since the end of the second world war?
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