Once upon a time, when a pixie haircut was still the rage, a smart adman took up the catchy words of an executive at the national carrier as its slogan: ‘Great people to fly with’.
Little did he know to what extent the future head honchos of the carrier and their minions would render inaccurate Omar Kureshi’s words over the years.
First went the greatness, then the people and then, in the end, the flights as well.
In 2011, Pakistan International Airlines was plagued by the same affliction as other state-run enterprises: political interference, incompetence and inefficiency, increases in fuel prices, lack of funds.
And so almost 50 per cent of its fleet was grounded and flights all but stopped running on schedule. One two-hour flight to Faisalabad scheduled to leave at 7am arrived at 9pm after delays and transits. In one one-month period more than 190 flights were cancelled, delayed or rerouted. Every other day brought news of a technical fault, sometimes resulting in an emergency landing.
News emerged that all spare-part purchases had been outsourced to a single agent, no doubt an ingenious way for PIA employees to slack off as much as possible. Saudi VIPs, it emerged, had been showered with gifts from the burgeoning PIA kitty.
Some claimed the smell of something amiss led to President House, others said it led to his sister’s place. One cannot be sure which lead to pick up. Or whether one will end up where one pays the airline to go. Perhaps, as they say, I’ll Arrive.
— Nadia Jajja was formerly an editor at Herald
