PIA: Better than the local bus?
-Illustration by Feica.
You are never fully prepared for a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight. That’s because anything can happen before, hopefully not during, or after the flight lands, safely. That is if you are lucky enough. Or know the exact number of prayers to keep your nerves in control.
Because as it seems, the PIA management is completely fine with the way things are moving along, debts and untrained staff notwithstanding.
A little off track I’m going to go. But there is a point to all of this. On February 3rd it rained in Islamabad after a three-day dry spell. Being on a media summit with colleagues we were happy about the rain, as Karachiites usually are. But what we didn’t know was that we’d be enjoying the rain on our plane ride all the way back home as well.
The rain went on even while we were boarding our flight (PK309) to Karachi. My colleagues and I found our seats and put our handbags inside the overhead compartment. But there was one problem. There was water dripping from the ceiling of the plane. Not like droplets, but dripping as if there is a hole in the ceiling.
We looked at each other and then at the air hostess, who conveniently retorted, “Haan toh? Peechay beth jayein.” And we moved a row back, still appalled.
Visibly angry with her reply but with his wits intact, one passenger turned towards us, and said: “Haan theek hai na … Nahatay huay jayengay.”
Within a minute there were complaints from other passengers too. An airhostess was asked to check what was happening. While trying to calm other passengers down, she herself eventually got annoyed as a few drops fell on her neatly coiffed hair.
Amidst all that was happening, it was shocking to eventually find out that it was a double deck aircraft, Boeing 747; an international airplane which was not even in proper condition to fly domestically.
If that seems like the end of the story, it is not. We were ‘requested’ to move upstairs which we did, not before taking out our handbags from the overhead compartment and found that there was water inside the compartment too. Our complaining fell on deaf ears, as the airhostesses continued staring us with that bewildered ‘Haan toh’ expression.
With drenched bags in hands we moved upstairs and by this time the plane was on the runway. The air hostess asked us not to open the overhead compartment and keep the bags with us. Within a few minutes, the overhead compartment fell open, with a loud thud, making a passenger behind our row let out a shriek, which provided much needed entertainment, if there wasn’t enough available already.
Landing back home safely, thankfully, and laughing about the whole plane ride, the only thing I didn’t find funny was the fact that PIA once had a superb record of having a well-trained staff, a fleet of well working aero planes, as well as known for establishing 36 famous airlines, including Emirates and Singapore Airlines.
Somehow, for the past few years, the only news coming out of PIA pertains to the fact that it is gradually turning into a local bus. This gradual degradation happened because of the ever increasing cases of mismanagement of funds, and corruption.
Though the Supreme Court took notice of that, there seems to be no immediate solution in sight. Apart from the fact that the PIA management needs to wake up from its slumber and restore whatever is left of the national carrier, before it becomes a laughing stock internationally. If it isn’t already.
The writer is a reporter at Dawn.com
If you remember PIAs paper tickets earlier, they had clearly indicated you are allowed to take Umbrella on-board, together with some other necessary items. Apparently those instructions had some purpose..!
Further I believe you were not so lucky to have drenched in the crystal clear FOC mineral water from the skies, as somebody has already pointed out, it was a 747 Jumbo so it was most probably drainage water from the toilet on the upper deck.
flying to SA once on big bird I heard an announcement advising folks how to use toilets, in 777 its still played on the monitors before flight safety demonstration… so people complaining (traveling on european and american routes) are luckier enough to still milk the best the national carrier can afford to offer to the ‘englightened’ travelers of these western countries). at least traveling to and from europe twice a year I never saw an old air hostesses awaiting their days of retirement as I witness on domestic routes here.
the fact is that, most of the money which the airline brings in, like the most countries (foreign remuneration patterns) comes from the gulf countries, where laborers do all kind of stuff only insane people can bear as normal.
its not the government, its people (who brought these thugs to the reigns?), my father told me that once a long time back while fixing avionics they got surprised by the shouting of cleaning staff arguing about who cleans the ‘poo’ from the toilet sink. nobody can ever even imagine how someone can manage to dump his poo in it? kids’ pampers and toilets flooding are common fare traveling on KSA route PIA flights. simply because those who travel on these routes come from unprivileged families and underprivileged areas.
a few year back I travelled on Qatar Airways from Doha with 8 hour stop at Doha International and QA staff was literally calling names asking people with their names because they didn’t know that their flights are awaiting them outbound. then last year I travelled on Air Arabia from Sharjah to Colombo and there was this Indian sitting next to me who got drunk and literally puked – after calling the airhostess 5 times I stood up to make my way to cockpit (yes I couldn’t bear it – as he was having some sort of seizure) and then the head purser who was a Lebanese apologized throughly and offered me her jump seat and picked my bags from my previous seat’s overhead compartment. so I figured, its not PIA alone, and its not even Pakistanis alone, its the Sub-continent people and what you can expect on these routes on even the flights which forbid alcohal.
then sometimes back there was this influential passenger who got drunk on a PIA flight and had a lighter with which he was threatening to fire the whole aircraft. this was written somewhere in letters to editors in dawn sometimes back.
lastly when you never bother to switch off your blackberries, don’t give up disturbing other folks (yes, the burger lot), and above all misbehave with the air hostesses what are you expecting? I have seen countless times (and I travel frequently) the burger lot misbehaving with everyone at the airports or even during flight, and sometimes I envy the underprivileged, uneducated people over them, its ok that they stare, talk loud, sing songs, sit on floor (like we also do at american airports during snow storms but don’t dare doing the same in our country because, well then, how could we show ourselves off as better than everyone here in Pakistan) but at least they don’t go as low as Sharmila Farooqi (you need to see youtube if you don’t know about it). Like someone else pointed out that what can you expect when nobody knows the word ‘please’ or ‘sorry’ or something like that.
KARMA is the word!! next time please vote sincerely!
What do expect when Fed Gov hands over PIA to incompetent, unqualified and corrupt cronies to run it with an equally irresponsible Board of Directors composed of political nominees and retired former corrupt bureaucrats like Capt Neseer to give their stamp of approval on every Business Plan submitted to them. The water dripping from ceilings would either from clogged toilets on the upper deck, or from clogged water drain outlets that are supposed to be heated when airborne. This is an airline where funds are not available to procure spare parts for its fleet of old and new aircrafts, but strangely billions available for purchasing new aircrafts which offer substantial kickbacks to those at helm both in PIA and Islamabad, or for salary hikes of an airline notoriously declared as the worlds most surplus employee to aircraft ratio in the entire aviation industry. If only PIA was handed over to competent management with integrity, free from interference by MOD or the sitting political government, it can still survive and become profitable.
You said my words. It’s a shame to see PIA what it is now.