A Story of Glory Turning Into Misery

My name is PIA, and this Independence Day, a flashback of six decades’ old success, flashes upon my mind. It was February 1, 1955 when I, as the national flag carrier, took off with my first foreign flight from Karachi to London.

With this not merely a super constellation aeroplane took off for unlimited skies, but fate of millions of Pakistanis also fluttered its wings.

Ah! I was the first airline in Asia to start jet plane service. Ah! I was the first non-communist airline that landed in China. Ah! I was the first airline to have linked Asia with Europe via Moscow. Ah! It was I who introduced movies and music to entertain passengers during flights of lengthy durations. And a very deep Ah! And again Ah! I was the first national organization of Pakistan that bought an IBM Computer. Don’t take it lightly, please. I purchased the IBM machine in 1967, when the very word ‘computer’ was weird to most Pakistanis.

It was a golden era when Karachi was the tarmac of Asia. Some thirty airliners had contract with me to train their aerial and ground staff. It was the time when my airhostesses wore uniforms designed by Pierre Cardin, an Italian-born French fashion designer known for his avant-garde style and his Space-age designs. I introduced Pierre-Cardin-made attire in 1966 and became an instant hit.

I was a blockbuster show of great hospitality. Great people, such as Mr Mirza Abol Hassan Ispahani, Mr Zafar-ul-Hassan, Mr Noor Khan and Mr Asghar Khan directed my conspicuous success. They were indubitably great people. That is why I called myself ‘Great People to Fly With.’ And the great poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz translated my slogan ‘Ba-kamal Log’.La-jawab Service.’

It was I, whose two great pilots i.e. Captain Abdullah Baig and Captain Taimur Baig, flew Boeing 720 from London and landed in Karachi only in six hours, forty-three minutes and fifty-five seconds. This is still an impregnable world record of fastest flying time. My engineering department was so highly skilled that I was doing technical maintenance of Air Malta, Somali Airlines, etc.

To 1980 from 1990s, I staggered and fainted. I couldn’t even get a chance to recuperate. And now I am helpless. Great people are gone and no new great is in sight that may recourse me to glory.

Once, I was at the zenith but now I am nearing collapse with every passing day. Experts enumerate some certain reasons for the ailments which I am plagued with today.

They say that political clout and haphazard way of running the PIA affairs coupled with unilateral open skies policy, such as ‘FlyDubai’, proved cancerous to the national flag-carrier. Mian Nawaz Sharif is in power yet again. The first third time premier of Pakistan has done worst to me, the PIA. It was he who initiated open-skies policy in 1992 that is still being followed.

Pakistan signs air services agreements with Gulf countries on point-to-point basis. It means an airline cancarry passengers between the two states. But gulf-based airlines lure Pakistani passengers with cheap fares to destinations beyond their hubs. Karachi is open skies for Dubai. Similarly, Pakistani airlines can operate flights to Dubai from any airport in Pakistan but PIA has been denied flight from Sialkot. According to a survey, out of the total international traffic from Pakistan, 81% is going through Gulf carriers. About 77% of these passengers are destined for Europe and USA.

Open skies policy proved to be a double-edged sword. It forced major airlines to roll back their operations from Pakistan. It slit the throat of PIA as well. Pakistan historically follows bilateralism policy for a reciprocal exchange of traffic rights for PIA. However, the principle of reciprocity was seriously compromised when Pakistan experimented with unilateral open skies for Karachi. The objective behind open skies was to attract airlines mainly from those countries, which would help accelerate investment and tourism in Pakistan. Ironically, no ground rules for open skies were discussed with PIA – the organization that would be affected the most.

Furthermore, additional traffic rights and flights were offered to foreign airlines without reciprocity for PIA, thus affecting its market share and reducing its earning capacity. Foreign carriers were allowed to pick up traffic from Pakistan to countries to which these airlines didn’t belong. Thus these airlines exploited Pakistan’s unilateral open skies policy to carry Pakistan’s ethnic traffic via UAE. This ensued in a capacity glut in the market for which a price war on those routes also began.

The ‘Most-Favoured Airline’ (MFA) status given to the national carriers of Gulf countries has badly eroded the profits of PIA. Normally, under the bilateral agreements, the airlines of countries concerned are allowed point-to-point traffic rights. But in agreements with the national carriers of Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, etc., PIA touches only one point in these countries whereas their carriers are allowed to touch four points in Pakistan i.e., Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar. Since Emirate Airlines, Gulf Air and Qatar Airways hold these traffic rights, they offer highly reduced fares from Pakistan.
They take them to their hub, from where they carry them to destinations across the globe. Because of unethical undercutting of established fare levels coupled with high airport user charges at Karachi, the airlines from USA, Canada, Scandinavia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Australia, etc., which could have contributed to promote tourism and bring in investment in Pakistan were not attracted to operate here.

Likewise, a domestic policy package was announced. Airlines from the private sector were allowed to roll in the hay. This was done without formulation of proper ground rules. In November 1997, these private airlines got a nod to start flights between Pakistan and Gulf. As a consequence of the increased entitlement for Pakistani carriers to Gulf countries, Pakistan accede substantial capacity to Gulf carriers without justification of traffic demand.

Nothing changed. Even in post-9/11 scenario, the biting of hands that feed PIA continued. After this heinous act of terrorism, most countries imposed severe visa restrictions on Pakistani nationals, which further affected PIA’s traffic. Pakistan’s entry into war on terror and ensuing terrorism ruined prospects of foreign direct investment in Pakistan. In such a scenario the progressive tourism was a far cry. Ironically, the open skies policy was still intact.

With the open skies policy as well as domestic policy package for the private airlines, PIA suffered huge losses amounting to billions of rupees each month. In 2012 alone, PIA suffered a loss of 30bn rupees. In the Quarterly Financial Report for January to March 2013, external auditors have stated:

‘Material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on Corporation’s ability to continue as a going concern and therefore may be unable to realize its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of business’.

This report reflects incompetence, mismanagement and lack of business acumen in PIA executives, yet some of them get extensions or survive investigations of financial impropriety, hushed up through networking.

Now, PM Sharif has vowed to bring able, professional and honest management in PIA. According to media reports, for the post of MD PIA Nadeem Yusafzai, Hyder Jalal, Imran A. Khan and Najeeb Sami have applied. It looks that they will never be held accountable for all their misdeeds. The government tasked a four-member committee to look after PIA. This committee is also controversial because one of its members is Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who until recently was Chairman of and is a major shareholder in Air Blue which makes him a beneficiary if PIA fails.

PIA has the highest number of workers in the world in terms of employees per aircraft. Sanctioned strength of PIA is 19159 employees while actual number of employees is 20448. Some 3058 workers are also on the daily wages. An average seat factor of over 75pc, will assure profitability since the best commercial profitable airlines have a seat factor of 82pc.

I have personally witnessed that daily-wage technicians perform better than the regularized employees as majority PIA employees are recruited on pure political grounds.

Due to these causes, now, my wheels are flattened, wings are sagged and my spine is bowed. Passengers are unsure rather scared of me. Those who degraded and swallowed my precious assets and dragged me to bankruptcy go scot free. To have new paint on my fleet from sell-out and re-hiring of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York and unilateral open sky policies and political intervention, all have rubbed salt on the wounds.

Perhaps, this is my last Ah! I am the same PIA with a glorified past of technical and commercial next-to-perfection state. Now, I am on a wheelbarrow of bail-out packages. These days my slogan is ‘Come Fly With US. ‘However, the wheelbarrow is being pushed to abattoir of privatization.