ISLAMABAD: Parliamentarians were informed by top management of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Friday that there was no plan to lay off employees or unbundle the national carrier in the near future.

Aviation Secretary Mohammad Ali Gardezi, who is also chairman of the PIA Board, and the airline’s Managing Director Shahnawaz Rehman briefed a National Assembly’s standing committee as well as a Senate body on the performance of the airline.

Earlier: PIA to be split into two, Gulf airlines may buy core business

Mr Gardezi said there was no plan to divide the PIA into core and non-core businesses and segments. “This is an important step towards privatisation of the airline but no such plan is currently under consideration,” he told the NA committee.

The minister of state for parliamentary affairs said the financial condition of PIA was not praiseworthy. “It is unfortunate that the condition of all state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is not good and we all are to blame for their depleting state,” he said, referring to the government policy of privatising the SOEs.

The parliamentarians expressed concern over the deteriorating state of PIA even though its officials had played an important role in establishing other well-known airlines.

“But look at the PIA now; we should devise some strategy (for improvement),” MNA Parveen Masood Bhatti said.

At the Senate committee meeting, Senator Dr Saeeda Iqbal opposed any plan to lay off the PIA employees and said: “The downsizing will have serious implications. If we cannot create new jobs then at least we should not make more people jobless.”

Responding to a question put by Senator Mohammad Khan Mandokhel that PIA was overstaffed, the PIA managing director said that most of the international airlines had low employee-to-aircraft ratio only because their core and non-core businesses had been separated.

“There are 8,000 to 9,000 employees related to support services, otherwise the employee-to-aircraft ratio in PIA is 200 which is not very high. Besides, there are many unviable stations on which the PIA operates but it is necessary to maintain connectivity in the country,” he added.

Mr Rehman said that most of the international airlines did not maintain local network, especially in the advanced countries, but the PIA was operating on small stations and employees were required at such locations.

The senators were also critical of the attitude and etiquette of the PIA crew, describing it as offensive.

“Just travel in any foreign airline for once and you will feel the difference,” Senator Rubina Khalid said, adding that at least the crew should be advised to smile while talking to passengers.

Senator Talha Mehmood said it was also because of “age factor”. The PIA crewmembers were mostly “seniors and people usually develop such bossy tendency” with the passage of time, he added.

The PIA chairman said the age limit for flight crew had been set at 45 years, but some people went to courts and the management was helpless in this regard.

Mr Gardezi claimed that the airline had managed to contain its losses this year. “PIA’s losses were Rs18 billion in the first six months of last year, but these have come down to Rs8bn in the first six months this year,” he said, adding that this was largely because PIA was now using fuel-efficient aircraft.

The two committees were informed that the airline had obtained two planes on dry lease. A tender for five long ATR planes on dry lease had also been floated. One aircraft has been obtained on wet lease from Jordan.

Published in Dawn, September 27th , 2014