PIA: A tale of glory and misery

I have a great story to tell. My name is PIA. And this day, a flashback of seven decades’ old utter success, flashes upon my mind. It was February first. The year was 1955. My (PIA) first foreign flight took off from Karachi to London via Cairo. It rang sweet bells into one’s ears. And it had been felt that not a super constellation aero plane took off for unlimited skies, but fate of millions of Pakistanis fluttered their wings towards new heights.

I was the first airline in Asia to start jet plane service. I was the first non-communist airline that landed in China. I was the first airliner to have linked Asia with Europe via Moscow. Very true! It was I who introduced movies and music to entertain valuable passengers during flights of lengthy durations. Do you all know I was the first national organization of Pakistan that bought an IBM Computer? Don’t take it lightly, please. I purchased the IBM machine in 1967 – a time when the very word computer may be heard off very weird to an ordinary man of the world.

It was a golden era when Karachi was the tarmac of Asia. Passenger planes of more than forty companies had been landing in Karachi. Some thirty airliners had a deal with me in getting their aerial and ground staff trained. It was the time when my airhostesses wore uniforms designed by Pierre Cardin, an Italian-born French fashion designer known for his avant-garde style and his Space-age designs. I introduced Pierre-Cardin-made attire in 1966 and became an instant hit.

I was a blockbuster show of great hospitality. Great people, such as Mr. Mirza Abol Hassan Ispahani, Mr. Zafar-ul-Hassan, Mr. Noor Khan and Mr. Asghar Khan directed my runaway success in technical and cut-throat aerial routes. They were truly great people, undoubtedly. That is why I called myself “Great People to Fly With.” And the great poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz translated my slogan “Ba-Kamal Log…. La-jawab Service.”

It was I whose two great pilots, namely Captain Abdullah Baig and Captain Ghayoor Baig flew Boeing-720 from London and landed in Karachi in six hours, forty-three minutes and fifty-five seconds. This is still impregnable world record of fastest flying time. My engineering department was so able that I was doing technical maintenance of Air Malta, Somali airlines, et cetera. I was great till late 1970s.

To 1980 from 1990, I staggered and fainted for a short while. I did not get a chance to recuperate. And now I am helpless. Great people are gone. Now no new great is in sight that may recourse me to the past glory. Political clout, lopsided and messed up way of running my affairs and open skies policy proved cancerous to me, it all began in 1992. President of Pakistan Airlines’ Pilots association, Sohail Baloch once moaned: “PIA Management should take up the issue of open skies policy with the government. No one is willing to protect the PIA from unfair competition.”

At that time out of the total international traffic from Pakistan, eighty-one percent was going through Gulf carriers. About seventy-seven percent of these passengers were destined for Europe and USA. Open skies policy proved a double-edged sword. It forced quality airlines to roll back their operations from Pakistan. It slit open my throat. I kept moaning and spewing pain and despair – my whimpers dispersed into the ether unheard.

At present, I have the highest number of workers in the world in terms of employees per aircraft. Sanctioned strength is 19,159 employees. Actual employees are 20,448 in total. Some 3058 workers are also on the daily wages on out-sourced contractor bases. Only 26 airports out of total 43 are functional. And only five of them are profitable. An average seat factor of over 75pc, will assure profitability since the best commercial profitable airlines have a seat factor of 82pc. It is pilferage, mismanagement, incompetence and not the worldwide practice of rebated passage facilities, which has turned me into ashes.

My wings are bowed. Tyres deflated. Spine is sagged. Engines are old and cold. Passengers are unsure rather scared of me. Contemporary airliners stayed young. I am on a wheelbarrow of bail-out packages. The wheelbarrow is being pushed to abattoir of privatization. Those who degraded me, swallowed my precious assets without a burp and dragged me to the bankruptcy go scot free.