Federal government should take stringent measures to save the national flag carrier from total devastation otherwise Pakistan International Airline (PIA) employees would have no other option but to approach Supreme Court of Pakistan. It was stated by leaders of Joint Action Committee of PIA Employees (JACPIAE) in a statement issued here Tuesday. JACPIAE leaders alleged that some 20 high-ranking officials at the helm of PIA’s top management were responsible for the total devastation of the national flag carrier. Mismanagement, ill-planning, corruption and nepotism had mounted the PIA losses to Rs116 billion and half of its fleet had been grounded, they added.
JACPIAE is an association of PIA Employees with representation from Pakistan Airline Pilots Association (PALPA), Society of Aircraft Engineers of Pakistan (SAEP), Aircraft Technologists Association of Pakistan (ATAP), Flight Engineers National Association (FENA), Alliance of Friends (SSA), Peoples Unity, PIACE Union and Air League. JACPIAE Convenor and PALPA President Captain Suhail Baluch and Deputy Convenor and SAEP President Shaukat Jamshed demanded that government should take corrective measures immediately by appointing competent administration or employees would have to approach the supreme judiciary to take notice of prevailing corruption, incompetence and poor administration afflicting the national airline as these vested elements had been pushing PIA to destruction under the nose of higher authorities.
They said PIA could not bear further mismanagement at the hands of a few people in top management who were involved in corruption and conspiracies against the airline and its workers. They said PIA MD claimed that he would take 90 days to turn around PIA but unfortunately, he miserably failed to honour his words. Since his appointment he has only proved his incompetence by appointing corrupt and inefficient cronies at key positions who had brought the airline to verge of collapse, they maintained.
JACPIAE leaders said the nosedive of PIA was blamed often on overstaffing whereas the airline spends only 16 per cent of its budget on the salary of its employees and therefore it is not true that overstaffing is the main issue afflicting the national airline. They said PIA was capable of enhancing the number of employees without hurting its finances if the bottlenecks and disastrous measures of the inefficient management were eliminated. They said employee to aircraft ratio was high only because PIA did not add aircraft to its fleet as per requirement.
Moreover, the network and departments it maintained needed employees as other carriers outsource the services reducing the number of employees, while PIA using this important asset could earn more if proper utilisation of staff was carried out.
Before start of hajj operation the PIA MD had said the forthcoming Hajj would be a loss to PIA as the operations and engineering departments were not at all prepared in fact the responsible people of both the departments were talking that this hajj operation would be the worst hajj operation ever, whereas hajj operation had always been the most profitable operation of PIA since its inception. The worst post hajj operation of PIA’s history ended with a mere 15 per cent punctuality as around 41 out of 270 post hajj flights arrived on time.
On the other hand, a fast dilapidating fleet would only add to the misery of the passengers as well, the national flag carrier would have at least 16 engines completing their life cycle in next three months whereas currently half of its fleet remains grounded due to shortage of 13 engines on 18 idle aircrafts. It is pertinent to mention that PIA has taken three engines on lease paying more than $300 per hour per engine, while its own engines are overhauled and ready for installation at Singapore and Amman but the management continues to ignore this fact to acquire more and more items on lease for kickbacks.
They said that it was strange that with the national carrier already having five Boeing 747 300 series aircrafts out of which two remain grounded for months pending repairs and shortage of engines, the management planned this grounding and late delivery of engines to justify a dubious deal with Hellinic Airways worth millions of dollars to acquire two more Boeing 747 200 series planes instead of repairing the existing 300 series.
Captain Suhail Baluch said administration should get its 6-7 grounded aircrafts ready for operation after necessary repairs in order to lessen the financial burden, but leasing of the aircrafts with crew would further increase its problems both financially and administratively.
The airline paid approximately $10-12 million to Hellinic airways for two aircrafts on lease while it could have had at least 8-10 engines overhauled and rest of the rectifications made with the same amount. They criticised the decision of the management to award maintenance and spare parts contract to Transworld Aviation FZE, a Dubai based US firm, which lacks qualifications and expertise to carry out the assigned task.
They said Transworld Aviation FZE had no experience of dealing with commercial airlines. They revealed that since mid-October to December PIA placed more than 1,800 orders to Transworld for supplies and the company responded on only less than 400 orders. They added that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of the aircrafts refused to deliver supplies to Transworld and that various OEMs did not employ the services of Transworld for this task. Owing to the refusal of the OEMs, Transworld had informed PIA of its inability to supply against the airline’s orders.
They said PIA is returning back to its old procedure for supplies of parts and maintenance of the aircrafts. PIA had already obtained maintenance, repairing and overhauling (MRO) license from European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is called Joint Aviation Regulation 145, (JAR145) after spending billions of rupees and later appointed a DMD on huge package of around Rs100,000 daily, while the same department or the person is yet to deliver any good to the national flag carrier.