National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence asks the government to review regularisation of PIA employees

National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence asks the government to review regularisation of PIA employees

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence has termed the regularisation of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) employees, working on daily wages, an additional burden on the corporation, saying the government should review the matter.

A meeting of the NA body held under the chair of Abdul Ghani Talpur, discussing the PIA losses, flight delays, the Hajj operation, and PIA flight rates and the presence of cockroaches on planes. The committee was informed about the details of aircraft to
employee ratio, the financial position of PIA and viability of the present fleet.

The body asked the PIA management to find out reasons, increasing financial losses of the corporation by emergency landing of planes, delays and cancellation of scheduled flights.   

“Strict action must be taken against those who are making conspiracies to destroy the national airline,” the parliamentary panel directed.

Expressing concerns over the increasing incidents of emergency landing, the committee inquired about the maintenance plan of aircrafts. However, the PIA’s officials were unable to give a satisfactory answer.  

The committee members were of the view that some elements of the organization were making conspiracy to destroy PIA to meet their own interests. “Negligence of the officials is risking the lives of passengers,” the committee concerned.       

The panel was also surprised to know that PIA has strength of more than 350 employees against one aircraft, while the international standard of staff is 150 people against one plane.

“Why PIA management is recruiting new employees if it is already overcrowded,” the committee inquired.

The committee was informed that accumulative loss of PIA was 140 billion. It was told that new aircrafts would be included in PIA by March and April, in 2012.

The committee directed MD PIA to submit a report on exorbitant plane-employee ratio, details of strategic alliance made for spare parts, the rationale of outsourcing PIA non-cores operations and reason for frequent failure of maintenance compliance for Europe
sector.

The MD PIA told the committee that this year, Hajj pilgrims were treated as international passengers and waiting time at airports, for travelling to Saudi Arabia, was reduced to six hours.

“At Jeddah airport, there are 14 boarding lounges for departing pilgrims and 78 airlines operate from Jeddah. Only PIA was able to get one boarding lounge reserved for its passengers during Hajj,” he said.

During the meeting, MD PIA also apologised for his statement reported earlier in the media “the pilgrims should be thankful for travelling in aircraft rather on camels.

The members stressed that negotiations with Saudi Arabia should be commenced now for making better arrangement for upcoming year.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=5791

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Dec 10 2011. Filed under Europe, Latest News, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry