Never before in the history of modern aviation, has commercial aviation industry faced such a crippling crisis which has forced airlines to ground their fleet. Scores of airlines like Virgin Australia with a fleet of 120 aircraft and FLYBE, a British independent regional European airline with 63 operational aircraft have collapsed because of COVIT19.
Passenger airline traffic is likely to pick up only after mid-2021, while in the interim period demand for cargo traffic will increase. PIA should refrain from increasing its passenger fleet and consider increasing its cargo capacity.
Airline industry thrives basically on tourism and trust and confidence of passengers who chose to fly on them. Unfortunately, tourism faces a decline of over 80% while fear of infection grips passengers, who feel uneasy confined inside a metallic tube with recirculating air, making it an ideal environment for breeding a contagious pandemic. Heathrow London, once the busiest airport in world has seen a decline of over 90% passengers. PIA the national airline of Pakistan, already in a perpetual state of crisis, burdened with accumulated losses of almost Rs500 Billion, is technically insolvent in the opinion of its auditors, with liabilities exceeding its total assets. It is facing an impending collapse, surviving only on state bail-out.
After the 1971 debacle former PM ZAB chose to sack AM Zafar Chaudhry and hand PIA over to Rafique Saigol, who put it back on track. He left, leaving it in the care of AM Nur Khan, who was given free hand by federal government with no political interference. Nur Khan selected a team of young educated professionals, who won passenger confidence by introducing innovative passenger entertainment and on-board flight services, offering them convenient and reliable flight schedules which captured a mix of foreign and local ethnic clients. It was Nur Khan’s brain child that PIA invested in hotel business, with Hotel Scribe and later Roosevelt owned by airline. Within months of Zia junta taking over, Nur Khan resigned because of regime interference in commercial decisions, foreign postings and appointment of cronies. Thereafter PIA has been on the decline with corruption and pilferage in fleet induction, procurement of essential spares, denting its balance sheet. Inspite of the fact that PIA had abundant local ethnic traffic even after the airline was imposed a ban on serving alcoholic beverages on flight, its market share was eroded by open sky policy introduced in connivance with nexus of corrupt government officials and executives of both CAA and PIA.
PIA needs to be made clean and lean, slashing top heavy management, and not inducting more high paid executives with hardly any commercial aviation experience, which is essential in times of grave crisis following COVIT19 infection. Times have changed from days of Nur Khan, where PIA no longer enjoys state monopoly and patronage as it did in past. Salaries and employee strength must conform to financial health and undue increase in 2009 salaries when PIA posted highest loss, need to be rationalized. Financial and administrative discipline must be enforced along-with transparency and auditing of balance sheet of PIA and its subsidiaries.
Malik Tariq Ali
Lahore
