Secretary Aviation sacrifying CAA & PIA to bring out other airlines from bankruptcy

– Secretary Aviation, who is MA in Rural Development, is looking CAA’s matters in Pakistan

– There is no regular DG-PCAA in Pakistan for last two years

Pakistani Aviation Industry is facing destruction for the last three-year despite one of the best Aviation Policy approved by the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2019. The industry is facing devastation as there is no expert Director General of Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (DG-PCAA) and Hassan Nasir Jamy Secretary Aviation Division, who is MA in Rural Development, is looking its all matters. The Prime Minister has given him additional charge of DG-CAA.  

Nowhere, it happens in the world, but in Pakistan. Because of his last few years struggles, the PCAA and the national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) are at the verge of devastation and continuously facing losses.

In this connection, Islamabad High Court had taken a cognizant notice that in a population of 220 million, we are unable to find a competent DG-CAA. Around 700 applications and interviewing had been conducted and 18 candidates were shortlisted. However, the High Court again set aside the whole previous process with direction to start new process for hiring new Director General.

The Secretary Aviation, who has played havoc in the aviation industry, has been extended as Acting DG-CAA till 31 December, 2020.

Read: PALPA creating misconception despite no cut in salary

After crashing PK-8303 flights in Karachi, not even once Secretary Aviation had the courage to come on media and talk about the disaster. It was his responsibility to handle this crash.

The biggest setback to PIA happened when a destitute License Fiasco was unearthed in Pakistan for the first time. A Candid Secretary Aviation also sitting as DG-CAA couldn’t handle even a simple issue of license of a pilot and made a whole Chaos around the world. Pakistani Aviation License holders across the world got embarrassed and more than 100 PIA pilots got suspended and later many airlines abroad laid-off Pakistani pilots from their jobs which resulted in loss of millions of dollars in remittances.

Then another disaster surfaced for PIA in terms of ban by EASA because of same mishandling of License issue. This whole failure sunk the airline to rock bottom. PIA would have filed for bankruptcy, had there been any other management today. Till today PCAA as a regulatory body did not conduct a single meeting with all stake holders of the airlines to give a feedback on this issue of EASA ban.

Recently ICAO even posted on their website regarding unsolved issues which is in-fact a great embarrassment for our country when we are being compared with Bhutan, Eritrea, Grenada etc. Is this really Pakistan’s actual worth today? Isn’t this incompetency of PCAA headed by an incompetent DGCAA and why are we still keeping quite over it?

We all know PIA cannot compete in the product with any other international airlines. The only plus PIA had was a direct connectivity to Europe which other carriers don’t offer. The same plus was nullified by our Secretary Aviation by granting direct routes to British Airways which was initially 3 flights from Islamabad, later increased to 5 & finally 7 only from Islamabad.

Now 3 weekly flights from Lahore have been granted as well. British Airways started with a Boeing 787-800 which is 226 seats approx. but this direct flight had such a heavy passenger load factor that it now British Airways(BA) is flying a Boeing 777 which is 350 seats.

Imagine, the kind of revenues being flying out of Pakistan in terms of Foreign Exchange to BA. Our PCAA seems extremely satisfied by giving more and more passengers to BA and in return get pennies for landing, Aeronautical, parking, over-flight charges. If taxes are an incentive for our PCAA, let it be known that Taxes are applicable as per government policy for all airlines equally.

With such a great vision prevailing in PCAA and Aviation Division how can anyone expect a PIA turn around?. British Airways fired 10,000 employees and got a bailout over $1.1 billion during COVID-19 impact, and we are making sure that all the losses incurred by BA due to Covid-19 are offset by earning revenues from Pakistan and destroying our own flag carrier PIA.

Another Nail in PIA is being expected by Virgin Atlantic which filed for Bankruptcy in August 2020 and was actually collapsing but our incumbent Aviation Secretary felt its pain in Pakistan and made sure that Virgin Atlantic should not collapse, thus we have granted them direct routes from Pakistan starting December 13th for 4 weekly flights from Islamabad and 3 from Lahore. Emirates is already flying 53 weekly flights from Pakistan. PIA share in international market has been reduced to only 30% which speaks volumes of our Aviation Secretary & Aviation Division.

Probably hidden aims are to reduce it down to 3% this year. Rest all the bankrupt airlines must look forward to our aviation division and incumbent Aviation Secretary, who would never negotiate any ASA (Air Service Agreement) or a BSA (Bilateral Service Agreement) and will keep granting other airlines the routes unilaterally so those airlines can avoid Bankruptcies and PIA should be bankrupted.

The question is when we will actually realize that our aviation industry is at verge of collapse due incompetent DG-CAA. We need a capable person as DG-CAA to bring this industry out of the rock bottom. No Aviation policy can be great unless its implementation is done by competent people.

About The Author