Comments on: PIA’s great mess

By: Ramez

Ramez — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 03:30:00 +0000

Free tickets.Yes,u only get to travel if seats are available or u gotta to tavel on jump seats…Free Medical..nearly every big corporation provides medical benefits to their employees and compare to them PIA’s medical is a joke..and kind mention other free stuff

By: Zaheer Ahmed

Zaheer Ahmed — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:26:03 +0000

A well reasoned logical analysis. The question is whether the Defence Ministry is willing to part with all the goodies that come with PIA and CAA?

By: Aminullah Chaudry

Aminullah Chaudry — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 06:13:53 +0000

No I realise my limitations. Never taken a job after retirement. Quite satisfied. Do not want to mess up my remaining years.

By: Adil Jadoon

Adil Jadoon — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 01:36:51 +0000

No you need to appoint some on with the record to run airlines efficiently, get rid of all the Jiyalas and base promotion, retainment on productivity. Take the Politics and the unions out of it.

By: Adil Jadoon

Adil Jadoon — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 01:34:44 +0000

PIA is a mess. i will not travel via PIA unless they get their act together and behave like a professional entity. PIA buildings at Islamabad airport are covered with political posters which should have nothing to do with an airline. It is time for PIA to either get rid of all the “Jiyalas” and incompetent people at the helm or die.

By: Monarchian

Monarchian — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:36:34 +0000

I agree with one contention that air routes come under MOD which is how you can protect you air space considering how volatile conditions are in Pakistan. But Yes, we need to slash unnecessary appointments, solely on the basis of political reasons and who are adding no output to the Organization, lot of money can be saved.

Management should be independent but be supervised by higher authorities. When US can bail out its whole Financial Sector, we can too bail it out and try to put it on right track.

All the losses should be absorbed by raising equity and let it start afresh and hopefully it will regain its momentum.

Why we all people whine all the time, come up with the solutions rather than proposing shutting down everything. Think positive and make some difference rather than representing the flock of whiners

Long Live Pakistan.

By: SBB

SBB — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:24:39 +0000

You sound like someone who flies PIA pretty regularly. This is the DG of the CAA telling you they need to improve. Not some aira gaira passenger. Come on man.

By: Ofk

Ofk — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 20:42:56 +0000

Foreign ownership (as stated in some comments) is not the only solution. Its good people running the show that matters. Take for example the time when PIA was under frmr. Air Marshal Nur Khan (and i think Asghar Khan before that), PIA was one of the best airlines of Asia. Latest aircraft, best & professional service. These people were from retd. Airforce, but they knew how to get the job done. I have seen advertisements in Western magazines dating from the 60s-70s, when PIA was the airlines to travel with in Asia. Unfortunately, like many institutions in pakistan, PIA was done in by the corrupt leaders/politicians, who made political appointees, rather then based on merit alone. The best solution would be to either declare bankruptcy, and to (sadly) lay off workers & renegotiate contracts from top to bottom hierarchy…..and/or to break the airlines into two. One as a new entity to serve the foreign and far flung/emerging markets….a full fledged airlines. And the other as a budget regional carrier. In any case, PIA has too many employees, and too many incompetent people sitting at the top & a govt./MOD that dont want to change the status quo.

By: Tanvir

Tanvir — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 20:26:22 +0000

After reading the main article and comments, it seems that PIA is an utterly corrupt organization. It should be sold or leased to the commercial sector for running like a real for-profit and service provider business.

By: Farrukh

Farrukh — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 19:46:39 +0000

Excellent Analysis, Mr. Chaudhry,
I hurts to see PIA in such shambles.
I believe the factor # 1 and # 4 of your analysis are root cause of this current mess at PIA.
An airline should be run like a business with strict checks and balances, and in current situation how can a regulatory authority like CAA and an airline like PIA can be under MOD, it’s beyond understanding.
PIA should be privatised with complete ban on Unions to produce better results.
Secondly, the man-power should under go rigourous performance evaluations and shoult be reduced in phases to compete with the world class airlines.

Cheers and Regards

Farrukh