Photos by White StarEverything looks fine as a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight is readying to takeoff from Karachi to Islamabad. The ground staff is making last minute checks and the cabin crew is welcoming passengers, directing them to their seats. As soon as some passengers take their seats, they start feeling unusually stuffy. They pull, twist and roll the overhead air conditioning vents but nothing works. Many others are struggling to stow their luggage in the compartments above their seats. The commotion blocks the way for other passengers. Requests for room to pass are made, only to be ignored. Nothing seems to be in order.
By the time the chief pilot asks the ground staff to leave the plane, flight PK 308 is already 10 minutes behind its scheduled departure time of 4 pm on October 8, 2017. It takes several more minutes before the plane finally takes off.
Isn’t 33 planes a disgrace for a 200 million strong Pakistan? Doesn’t PAF has less people per plane than PIA? 4000 engineers?
It is in good national security interest to have a national airline hence PIA functions used to be under the Defense Ministry (hint: army). But I think that enough is enough and that PIA should start as a public private partnership and eventually sold in a transparent manner. Do danda pittai of any miscreants masquerading as PIA quota employees who get “upset” over loosing their haram ki kamai. Can the court intervene if PIA is slowly privatized?
It’s become a political thing, whoever is in the Government will feel the pressure and try to privatize it, and whoever in the opposition will oppose any efforts to do so. Last week Imran Khan in a Karachi rally reaffirmed PTI’s stance (in the lats few years) that it stands against the privatization of PIA which it considers a national asset.
**Have you ever tried to book a Business Class Seat in PIA international routes they are always full according to the Computerized booking system, but when you go to Board the very same flight you see almost all Business class seat are empty.
Poor management and aircraft to employee ratio seem to be the main problems for PIA… they have too many employees for such a small airline of like 30 aircrafts. Oh and corruption is just the icing on the cake.
Whenever I fly to Pak, I try to use PIA business class whenever possible. The reason being they treat you like royalty, and the 10-course desi buffet meal is just lovely. Otherwise I am a regular Emirates Skywards member.
A travel agent told me once that CARGO more than makes up for the empty seats we see in PIA planes, specially the B777 fleet operating on international flights. They fill up cargo which makes more money than a passenger seat (doesn’t matter Y class or J class)
Bohat tarqi ho gaye hey, I was driving the project (IT/Networking Side) when PIA cutover to Sabre reservation system this was in late 90s early 20s… at the time PIA had 48 planes now they are down to 33… Mashallah mashallah so very nice and progressive… shall we blame this on the khakis too and move on please?
