ISLAMABAD: Lashing out at the PIA high-ups over mismanagement, members of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Delay in Haj flights said that traveling through PIA aircraft was harder than performing the religious obligation.
The NA committee met here on Wednesday with MNA Syed Samsam Bukhari in the chair. The meeting took stock of PIA affairs including grounding of aircraft, inordinate delays in the flights particularly in the Haj flights, malfunctioning of the planes, existing strength of the fleet and restructuring of the national flag carrier.During the meeting, MNA Shahid Khakan Abbasi said: "PIA should not undertake Haj operation because it has gone beyond its capacity. Its aircraft are aging and inefficient on fuel." He suggested that PIA top management should consider leasing aircraft for Haj operation.
In his opinion, this option could help PIA cut short Haj operation to 30 days instead of 62 days. He said that the PIA could not make any improvement in this regard as the duration of the operation was the same as was in 1998. He was of the view that cut-short period would help the pilgrims save up to 25 per cent of their expenditure.
"This will also ensure smooth and uninterrupted PIA flights in other sectors worldwide," said the MNA who is also owner of Air Blue.
While briefing the meeting about 62-day Haj operation, Chief Coordinator Haj Operations Ijaz Mazhar said that the problem lay with unsatisfactory infrastructures and procedures at Saudi Arabia airports. "It becomes chaotic when 125,000 Hajis land on terminals and come to the immigration counters that can handle only 40,000 passengers and the bottlenecks at security counters besides other problems," Ijaz Mazhar said and added that these things were beyond PIA's control.
He said during last Haj operation there were only three technical faults with the PIA aircraft including a bird hit.
Chief coordinator said that two flights were delayed when 125 passengers reported late and on the other occasion, the passengers refused to board a plane because their luggage did not reach the airport on time.
MNAs Nosheen Saeed and Masood Abbas were the first to object when PIA passed the buck to the Saudi government and the Hajis.
But Ijaz Mazhar explained that the problems started in 2007 when new terminals were being built. "The problem worsened in 2008 and then settled in 2009. There had been problems in successive years but the operation was streamlined later as 2011 was less chaotic than the previous years," he said explaining how PIA had reduced delays from 8 hours to 5 hours during the last Haj operation.
However, some of the MNAs who also performed Haj last year disagreed to the assertions given by Ijaz Mazhar.
MNAs Salahuddin and Masood Abbas informed PIA Managing Director Nadeem Yousafzai about the 13-hour delay in the VIP flight from Madina.
However, the subject was concluded when PIA was directed to look into the suggestion of leasing planes for Haj operation.
The two aircraft taken on lease cost PIA $7.5 million that included insurance and maintenance etc while purchasing an aircraft for Haj flights would have cost the national flag carrier $20 million.
Returning to the subject of delay in flights that, according to MNAs, were becoming a pain for passengers, Nosheen Saeed informed PIA top management of problems such as insipid food during flights, door jamming incidents, under carriages, non-functioning of air conditioners and miscommunication of delays in flights that wasted passengers' time.
PIA conceded that aging fleet was the biggest problem of the airlines.
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.