Pakistan’s state owned transportation industry – rail, air and road – is in the process of disintegration and collapse. Railways has already hit rock bottom, and PIA is rapidly catching up with it. As for road transport industry, the state has already distanced itself from it and NLC which is a subsidiary of defence services is involved in thousands of missing containers controversy and has replaced the more economical goods train, depriving cash starved railways of much needed revenues.
The most common denominator which has contributed to collapse of all these is mismanagement, rampant corruption, cronyism, pilferage and wrong choices of controversial men to key executive assignments. Since the last three years key appointments in PIA and CAA are slave to a crony of the President. PIA’s Director Stores and Procurement, an American national flight crew, was given this key assignment by this crony, and has just signed a deal with little known company based in Jebel Ali Free Zone Dubai (Tansworld Aviation Ltd) for exclusive procurements of parts, chemicals etc with an assured annual value of over $40 million annually.
The national airline’s Maintenance Repair and Overhaul has been outsourced to companies whose poor performance is exhibited by ever rising technical defects that have led to unprecedented cancellations and delays of flights. PIA’s former MD hired on contract an American national of Pakistani origin as DMD, who has been instrumental in these controversial MRO contracts, Procurement of technical spares at highly exaggerated prices which are in violation of PPRA rules.
PIA’s top management and key departments were handed over to men with controversial background, who had one common factor, all held foreign nationalities, with majority having American passports. The unprecedented delays in flights operated by brand new Boeing 777 and ATR aircraft give credence to theories that this may be part of a plan to justify induction of more aircraft on an emergency basis.
Pilferage in revenues, procurement and cronyism are the main causes for PIA’s predicament. At a time when cash starved PIA is unable to maintain its existing fleet, the state owned airline, the ministry and CAA have surprisingly given permission to foreign airlines, including a low cast Saudi airline to carry Pakistani passengers, while the airline has signed a deal with Turkish airline for carrying passengers that PIA would normally had carried itself.
Indiscipline amongst the top executives was displayed by the Director Marketing doing a circus act on YouTube and this indiscipline has infected the whole airline human resource.
GULL ZAMAN
Peshawar