November 18, 2007	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 07, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: Pakistan International Airlines’ engineers on Saturday vowed not to block the ongoing Haj operations for the sake of pilgrims’ convenience and name of the national flag carrier, but warned that unavailability of spares could still create hurdles.

Society of Aircraft Engineers Pakistan (SAEP), which had on November 2 held up the entire airline operations for a whole day through an unannounced strike following management’s refusal to accept their demands for improved working conditions, in a statement said: “The engineers have been asked to work day and night in achieving dispatch reliability of 100 per cent.”

Nevertheless, SAEP President Shaukat Jamshed said he was concerned about the timely availability of spares and old fashioned procedures in the airline that could cause delays.

National carrier’s Haj operations commenced on November 14 and would run up to January next, when last of the 124,050 pilgrims, who travelled by PIA, return home. A total of 336 flights would be flown during the process.

However, Mr Jamshed regretted that PIA management had not moved an inch forward for the acceptance of demands put forward by the SAEP despite accepting them as legitimate.

He further said that at a critical time when Haj operations were in full swing, certain sections of the PIA management were disseminating negative propaganda about legal action against people responsible for November 2 halting of operations.

Meanwhile, in a memorandum to the caretaker government about the November 2 incident, the SAEP said it was committed to negotiated settlement of outstanding problems about which consensus was achieved on October 30.

Holding the management responsible, the engineers’ body said, it created an abrupt deadlock, which led to the sorry incident.