Air Wars Over Open Skies The Battle of Pakistan
In keeping with its policy for liberalising of the economy, the Nawaz Sharif regime set about deregulating the aviation industry. As a part of that process, permissions were granted to a number of airlines for operating on domestic sectors. Going further, the then government decided that reciprocal sovereign agreements were not to be enforced for operating to and from Pakistani international airports, the initial opening being confined to Karachi. While “letting a hundred flowers bloom” was a positive move with respect to the domestic skies, a proliferation of non-sovereign airlines started a cutthroat price war on the Dubai-Karachi-Dubai international sector. If the “Open Skies” policy had been restricted to sovereign airlines, as is slated to be done with effect from Jan 1, 1994, the dubious proliferation of fly-by-night operators who took advantage of the situation to the detriment of both the national interest and the national airline would have been avoided. While the government should have opted for a more phase-wise approach and annunciated a more clear-cut policy, the CAA rather than the government are to blame for the mess because there is enough evidence on record to suggest that the regulating authority misled the government, even circumventing the spirit of the liberalisation, to suit certain vested interest. In effect, this amounted to daylight robbery and one must commend PIA for not succumbing to unfair market pressure on its most lucrative route. As it is, they have taken a sustained hit because of the open-ended approach. Besides being potentially unfair, the CAA stance was extremely discriminating against the national interest and somebody should be taken to task for it. The limited aviation “rollback” on “Open Skies” on external sectors is a more suitable and considered policy, one that should have been the responsibility of the CAA to implement in the first place.
As a frequent critic of PIA, it is a pleasure to note the superb manner that PIA has conducted itself in the past few months to meet the challenge. It is beginning to look like the Airline of two decades ago in the first Nur Khan-tenure. Both on the international and domestic routes there has been a marked change for the better with respect to the visible operations, particularly ground handling and in-flight service. To that extent, more than anything else competition seems to have aroused the dormant loyalty within PIA personnel and motivated them to perform in the able manner that they are capable of. There is no substitute for courtesy and caring. Some of us who travel constantly on domestic routes, particularly on the Karachi-Islamabad-Karachi sector and have been spoiled by the attention we get on the ground in Islamabad, were still unprepared for the depth of company spirit within the PIA staff, particularly those who manage the First Class Lounge (Mrs. Najam, etc). That such protective emotion could have been aroused is a credit to PIA, to all its management, past and present. While doing many things wrong, in balance (and in all fairness) it seems that PIA has been ahead in also doing things right. With their livelihood in danger at the advent of many airlines, PIA personnel have banded together and raised their performance. If one may say so, the stark difference is clearly visible.
