The new owner of PIA Arif Habib is a fairly senior and sensible business tycoon who has been running Bank Alhabib quite well after the breakup of Habib Bank into various entities, therefore, his statement after his bid for the ownership of national carrier was accepted that now PIA will provide umpteen employment opportunities also wasn’t liked by many economists who know that one of the reasons of decline of PIA was its overstaffing. It is already a bloated airline Its staff per aircraft is much greater in number than many airlines which are making money. To burden it more with additional staff would cause it more harm than good financially. The well-wishers of PIA expect that its new management should right size it instead of burdening it with more financial liability. Arif Habib will have to work like an economist rather than a politician. He has before him role models like Air Marshal Asghar Khan and Nur Khan in whose tenures as chairmen of our national carrier, PIA had become one of the first six best airlines of the world.
Syed Mazhar Ali Shah
Time was when PIA flights used to take off on time. It was in 1968 when Munim Khan the governor of then East Pakistan had come to Karachi for a meeting. He was booked in a PIA flight from Karachi to Dacca at 4.00 pm. He reached Karachi airport twenty minutes late only to find that the flight had taken off. He wrote a complaint to President Ayub against PIA that PIA plane should have waited for him as he was after all a governor. The president endorsed that letter to PIA chairman Air Marshal Asghar Khan for his comments to which the chairman replied that the President should appreciate the fact that PIA is so much particular about the observance of its time schedule that it doesn’t wait even for the governor.
Very few people know that the slogan ‘Great People to Fly with’ was coined by famous Radio man and journalist Omar Qureshi when he was Director Public Relations PIA.
