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The PIA Story, Intrigue vs Excellence

(This is the FIRST of two articles on the national airline)

The job description of any airline must state that it should safely transport passengers in comfort, and cargo without being damaged and/or pilfered, on time from one location to another. An inherent ability to perform continuously over a period of time gives the airline a credible reputation and translates into more passengers and cargo. Enhanced revenues should lead to greater profits, then why is it that PIA, which shows continual growth in revenues based on captive routes like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, fails to show corporate profits in line with the increase in its revenues? Severe politicisation of the corporate structure over the years and undue interference from influential persons has virtually destroyed the sanctity of PIA’s much vaunted corporate culture. Instead of management controlling expenditures, the expenditures have soared in increase of management personnel and its associated overheads. The professionalism inculcated into PIA’s management that had previously served it well in both tactical and strategic planning has been replaced by “spur of the moment” decisions motivated mostly out of individual interests and without an in-depth study of economic feasibility. Debilitation in the management spectrum has taken place across the board from the lowest tiers to the upper reaches of senior executive positions. The momentum of the 60s and the 70s, as well as the continued excellence of its cockpit crew and engineering support has served PIA through the 80s and taken it well into the 90s. PIA has survived many tribulations along a very turbulent route, much more so in the last 3-4 years.

Airlines are very dependant on timely fleet replacement for increased revenues and profits. Every 10 years or so, every progressive airline must go through a partial changeover to newer aircraft, PIA’s fleet replacement has been unduly delayed. Boeing and Airbus Industrie are currently engaged in a fly-off exercise to determine what type of aircraft will replace some of PIA’s ageing fleet on the longer routes. Depending upon its long-haul 300-seat capability Boeing-777 may have an edge over its Airbus rival in serving Pakistan’s expatriate communities in the US and UK. The Fokker F-27 outlived its profitable utility more than a dozen years ago. For domestic operations, the peculiar nature of PIA’s socio-economic operations in relatively backward areas require special characteristics, presently it is a toss-up between the French ATR-72 and the Canadian Dash-7. We remain at a crossroads of sorts across the whole gamut of PIA’s operations, but the incumbent government is very much “hands on” as regards the future of the national airline.

Over staffing is a major problem with PIA but much more than that is the inefficiency bred by nepotism that is now parked in the lifeblood of the airline. The period 1993-1996 has been the worst in the history of PIA, Air Vice Marshal (Retd) Farooq Umer as MD allowed Asif Zardari to virtually control the airline by proxy. Farooq Umer was not crooked in the monetary sense, he was a weak, servile character who was dishonest in that he allowed those with influence absolute licence at the cost of PIA simply so that he could hang onto his job. The Airline paid a heavy price for his lack of spine. He soon became an active collaborator to the outrageous instructions from the PM’s House concerning appointments and promotions. As any bully is apt to do, at the same time he needlessly hounded those brilliant and honest executives without political clout who would point out failings and discrepancies that were harming PIA. While he did not enjoy a monopoly on misdeamenours since these had been emulated earlier by previous political governments and previous managements, the excesses during his years as Managing Director paled before all the others combined. The result was a sharp drop in PIA as a viable economic and corporate entity. While the Unions were politicised, the politicisation of the senior management also gave them room as individuals to develop their own groupings and selfish agendas, virtually destroying the integrity of the airline as a viable corporate entity. PIA now has two, three or even four sets of executives in various permutations and combinations who thrive on a “revolving door basis” depending upon which political party is in power in Islamabad. Naturally the group that comes to power wreaks vengeance against those who relinquish power while the losers in turn proceed to foment intrigue and conspiracy against the incumbents. PIA in fact is a case study of intrigue versus excellence instead of excellence based on teamwork. The only silver lining is that the individuals who make up the various motivated groups are a minority compared to the vast “silent majority” of executives who labour to keep the airline running irrespective of which group indulges in “local politics” once it occupies the influential executive seats. The danger this hapless lot has to fear (and endure) is if they are brilliant and/or competent, merit becomes a disqualifier whichever group comes into executive authority since those who have risen on the basis of nepotism and favouritism will always have an inferiority complex with respect to those who have risen on merit and merit alone. It is not unusual to see some of them falling in line with crooks, opting for survival simply out of individual economic compulsions of safeguarding their jobs, protecting their own hearth and home, accepting with seeming enthusiasm many humiliations degrading to their own merit and competence.

The present Chairman MNA Shahid Khaqan Abbasi needs to keep a mature head on his shoulders before an experienced lot of intriguers puts a gun on his shoulders to sort out their own personal vendettas against targeted individuals at the cost of PIA as a corporate entity. The appointment of Capt Humayun Jameel to oversee the Director Administration’s job could have been avoided, the other appointments made till date, like Haider Jalal as Director Marketing, also do not bode too well for the airline. Unfortunately the human material that Shahid has got to play around with in his search for excellence is rather limited and he has not been averse to Chanakhya’s rule of “an enemy of an enemy is a friend”, thereby sidelining some good executives who would have been useful for the airline. During the fleet replacement period the Chairman will need sound advice and counsel, managerial knowledge and experience as well as capabilities above and beyond the norm. The induction of new aircraft does not simply mean that all is well if pilots learn how to fly the aircraft and ground crew learn to maintain it. There is a whole system change that goes hand in hand with managerial and other staffing positions on the ground throughout the airline. PIA will soon feel the loss of experienced hands like Nawaz Tiwana and Khurshid Anwar. Brilliant and honest Jalil Tareen left with a golden handshake in 1995 rather than submit to Farooq Umer’s machinations, others were sidelined for no conceivable reason except that they were too close to the previous management.

What PIA needs is a complete revamp of the system, the new Chairman seems to be engaged in that in pragmatic fashion. Why should we fly on international routes that are unprofitable, why indeed should we fly more on a route than is absolutely necessary? Losing Rs 800 million annually on Fokker routes and Rs 700 million approximately on other domestic routes, a combined total of Rs 1500 million, why should we not changeover from the outdated, well past its prime Fokker and enhance the fares on domestic routes to reflect commercial nuances as is the norm in other countries? PIA needs to enhance its revenues but at the same time there has to be a fair amount of cost-cutting and improvement in service. We have to send home a lot of the excess baggage at the higher executives level. Above all PIA needs to search out its inborn excellence and shun the intrigue that bedevils the airline at all levels, more particularly at the senior level.

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