Scepticism abounds with regards to pouring more money into an airline which has for some time been s

Flights cancellations and delays have become a norm with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). Almost a third of PIA flights suffered delays due to technical and administrative reasons in 2012. More than 4,345 of PIA's 12,184 flights were delayed due to various administrative and technical problems in last year's first three months, Syed Naveed Qamar, the federal defence minister, told the parliament earlier in the year. The result was huge financial loss: in December 2012 the minister revealed that the airline currently faces a loss of 141.4 billion rupees, as compared to 42.4 billion rupees in 2008. Much of the problem is attributed to PIA's ageing fleet of aircraft, most of which has outlived its manufacturer-prescribed age of 16 years. This ageing online travel brochures fleet has also become an international embarrassment, with several European countries repeatedly conveying safety concerns to the Civil Aviation Authority online travel brochures (CAA) in Pakistan and demanding that a ban be imposed on PIA's flights. Even on domestic routes, passengers online travel brochures frequently complain about a deteriorating quality of service, leading to a shift to alternative, private airlines for domestic travel.
PIA's management has claimed that 150 billion rupees of what should have been the airline's share of the market has been lost to other international online travel brochures airlines in the past three years since the government has granted traffic online travel brochures rights to foreign carriers. PIA spokesperson Syed Sultan Hasan tells the Herald that granting of such rights has an adverse effect on the airline. "PIA, being the national flag carrier, has suffered badly during the last decade online travel brochures when international carriers started to penetrate the Pakistani market." The airline calculates the loss resulting from this measure as seven million potential passengers who travelled through foreign airlines between 2009 and 2012.
"A majority of these passengers were travelling from Pakistan to their final destination via the origin (hub) of those airlines; these passengers are carried to other destinations such as UK or USA, where PIA is already running direct flights from Pakistan," says Hasan.
These international online travel brochures airlines online travel brochures are also said to have increased their market share by periodically lowering online travel brochures their fares to unprecedented levels that PIA finds difficult to match. These low fares, say PIA officials, not only have an adverse effect on the market, but also lead to a huge loss of foreign exchange. "PIA has raised this issue on several forums. While Pakistan has been liberal in granting traffic rights, the advanced nations have been protective about their own markets, economies and airlines by not allowing foreign carriers to operate," complains Hasan.
Regular air travellers present a different argument, focusing on PIA's performance, not only on international, but even on domestic online travel brochures routes. They cite flight delays and comparatively expensive air tickets as the main reason for a shift to other, private, airlines. After two air crashes online travel brochures involving private airlines in recent years, a shift of domestic passengers back to PIA was seen, but as the memory of these accidents fades into the past, there has been a renewed move towards private online travel brochures airlines, primarily because online travel brochures of a more competitive quality of service.
There are many voices, even within PIA, which argue against the provision of protective safeguards on international routes to an organisation with such poor performance that it is not even attractive for passengers on domestic routes. Many take a pessimistic view about the airline's problems being solved through protection from the government. "Only performance and quality will revive PIA, not protective measures," says one senior PIA official based in Karachi.
It may be argued that the slump in PIA's profitability is tied up with a rise in global fuel prices and downturn in local and international economies. However, economists do not overlook the fact that rising international online travel brochures fuel prices online travel brochures coincide with a time when management issues within PIA also started online travel brochures dominating online travel brochures the national media. "It's true that the airline business online travel brochures goes through ups and downs all over the world, but PIA [also] has serious online travel brochures management issues which are responsible for the crisis it is [presently] facing," says Asad Umar, an economist and senior online travel brochures vice president of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. He also sees the present phase of crisis in the airline as coinciding with the coming to power of the Pakistan Peoples Party. "That's when issues online travel brochures of governance started to rise generally … and particularly in PIA and other public-sector entities … If you compare PIA's performance during the last four years with the four years that preceded [this period], you will find a marked deterioration."
Others agree to some degree with the PIA management's assessment of rising fuel prices in the international market as a basic factor in the airline's woes. According to banker and economist Sakib Sherani, "Rising fuel prices is one cause of the crisis, online travel brochures but after that it is basically management issues that are causing trouble." Non-merit appointments and petty corruption online travel brochures figure largely within such management issues. The airline has continued to hire new people despite its state of deep financial crisis and a government ban on recruitment. In October 2012, Qamar told the Senate that more than 2,590 people have been appointed to PIA since 2008, when the new government came to power and the ban was imposed. Engineer Arshad H Abbasi, who is an adviser at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, confirms the graveness of the problem, "Over-employment is the biggest reason behind PIA's crisis … [the airline's] employee-aeroplane ratio is the highest online travel brochures in the world."
Most of these appointments – some with rather online travel brochures hefty salaries – have been in the officers' cadre. A case in point is that of former deputy managing director Salim Sayani, a Pakistani American, who was appointed in 2009 for a salary of 20,000 US dollars per month, along with other perks and privileges. For years, the management resisted pressure to remove him from office, for, as per the rules of his employment contract, his dismissal would come at huge financial cost. After severe public criticism, it complied by firing Sayani in July 2012.
Since PIA's internal irregularities and mismanagement have become such a recurrent issue in the media, practically turning the organisation into a byword for corruption in the eyes of the public, the airline appears to be taking some measures to address the issue. "The present management has taken major steps for conducting a forensic audit of the airline, online travel brochures for which it would be inviting offers online travel brochures from the international market," says Hasan. According to him, an internal accountability committee will also be constituted, which will consist of officers of the highest integrity and unimpeachable character online travel brochures who will investigate and review corruption cases, before referring them to the National Accountability online travel brochures Bureau or other investigating agencies, as well as recommend departmental disciplinary action.
The airline's state of internal chaos may prove to be beyond these corrective measures, however. According online travel brochures to Abbasi, trade unions have tremendous influence in PIA's various departments, leading to total helplessness on the part of the top management to act in a situation where merit is largely missing as a factor online travel brochures in hiring. "There online travel brochures is a total collapse of the internal accountability system … recently, they discovered fake degrees of [a number of long-serving] pilots … The top management has lost central control of PIA and this has negatively impacted the working of the organisation."
online travel brochures When it comes to flight delays caused by bird hits, the national carrier does appear to be dogged by bad luck, both on domestic online travel brochures and international flights. Two large passenger planes were hit by birds in July 2012, and a senior official of PIA tells the Herald that over 45 bird hits occurred in the outgoing year alone, while there had been 60 such incidents online travel brochures in 2011.
The airline places the blame on CAA for not clearing the sky around runways. Both bird hits in July took place near the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore primarily because its runway is close to the residential online travel brochures areas. The question is: why are private airlines not complaining about bird hits, when they too fly out from the same airports? A senior PIA official tells Herald that private airlines, too, are not happy with the situation: "I don't know why these airlines are not making a public issue of it, but I know for a fact that they too complain about it."
CAA officials say that the growth of residential areas around runways is responsible for the problem. "Population growth is something we cannot control," says one official. "This is for the local government to do." Bird hits have caused millions of rupees in loss to PIA, with a single hit costing the airline as much as two million rupees, according to officials.
PIA spokesperson online travel brochures Hasan emphasises that acquisition of new aircraft will improve the airline's performance. The argument is based on the premise that the country surely needs a national carrier with more – and more fuel-efficient – aircraft in its fleet, which will not only balance its employee-aircraft ratio, but will also help in earning profit. He tells the Herald that more than half of the PIA's airplanes are older than 20 years. "PIA's fuel expenses swallow 55 per cent of the total revenue … The new technology aircraft [which the PIA is in the process of buying] are approximately online travel brochures 50 per cent more fuel-efficient than existing ones … [Replacing older aircraft] will considerably online travel brochures reduce maintenance costs … The fuel bill will also be reduced online travel brochures by half, which will enable PIA to achieve profits."
Scepticism abounds with regards to pouring more money into an airline which has for some time been seen by many as a white elephant and far too reliant on external support. "If it is dependent on the government for acquisition of a new fleet, then it is obvi