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THE financial woes under which PIA labours are a decades-old and a well-known headache for the state. But a letter published in these pages a week ago speaks volumes for the reputation the national airline has acquired amongst its clients.
The writer wished to put on the public record that “there is still hope”. It seems the gentleman had travelled from Karachi to Islamabad a few days prior on an aircraft that was ageing. But, he said, it was “clean and departed and arrived on time in Islamabad. The announcements were very professionally done and the crew on board was courteous, cheerful”. The writer concluded with a heartening message: “PIA, keep it up. You can make it.”
In other words, passengers no longer have any expectation of the trip being a pleasing experience. A departure that takes place on time, a clean aircraft, courtesy and professionalism would be considered the minimum standard to which an airline must adhere. But so far has PIA fallen that many of us find ourselves grateful when a flight isn’t inordinately delayed or cancelled.
And, for the sake of honesty, it must be accepted that while travellers are free to vote with their feet and take their business elsewhere, there isn’t really that much of a choice. The other airlines, Air Blue and Shaheen Air, aren’t vastly different in the standards of their operation.
Airline tragedies in Pakistan are papered over.
But these inconveniences are very minor given the fact that Pakistan has a track record of even major airline tragedies being papered over. If cleanliness and professionalism are basics that ought to be routine, safety is even more so. Yet, no direct answers are available about why three planes crashed in recent years. In 2010, Air Blue flight 202 crashed into the Margalla hills in Islamabad, killing 152; in 2012, Bhoja Air flight 213 crashed near Islamabad airport, killing 127; and just some weeks ago, in December, PK-661 crashed while on its way to Islamabad, killing 48.
In all cases, there were no survivors, yet we still a wait accountability. Inquiries were immediately ordered, but all we got were broad excuses such as pilot error or hardware malfunction. (Bhoja Air ceased operations in 2012 — it had been suffering financial difficulties in preceding years.)
I can only guess at how many people on aircraft worry at the back of their minds about the lack of answers in these tragedies, but their numbers must surely be high. Certainly, newspapers publish letters of complaint or questions by citizens over this matter frequently. In fact, on the same day as the letter quoted above was published, so was another saying that “[…] it seems the PK-661 crash inquiry report is going down the same path that previous inquiry reports involving the government followed. […]” — which is, to put it precisely, nowhere.
But then, why single out air travel when the safety record across the board is abysmal? Pakistan Railways are in as famously decrepit a situation as PIA, and receive far less attention. Accidents are common, but perhaps because the people who die are not of a profile as those that can afford air travel, there is a glaring lack of investigative outcomes. The headlines scream out from the newspapers and the rest, as they say, is silence.
Most recently, on Nov 3, two trains collided near Karachi’s Landhi Railway Station, killing at least 22 people on the spot and injuring dozens of others. According to the government, railway officials erroneously gave the green signal to an approaching train, which went on to hit another on the track that was stationary.
Accidents do happen. But in September last year, near Multan, a passenger train ran into a freight train at rest, killing at least six and injuring over 150. The tragedy was blamed on the driver of the passenger train for having failed to heed the red signal that went up after the goods train stopped. And why had it halted? Because it had run over a man crossing the track.
In November 2015, a train’s brakes failed and it sped to its doom down the side of a mountain in Balochistan, killing at least 19; in July of the same year, at least 17 people were killed were killed when a special military train fell into a canal when the bridge it was navigating collapsed partially. The list is endless, and this doesn’t even refer to derailments, the sabotage of tracks, and unmanned and exposed tracks in urban areas where people are killed while crossing the tracks.
As for the roads network, there is so much to say that perhaps it merits a separate article altogether. In terms of the airlines and the railways, though, my question is, do we never get any answers because of fatalism or lack of concern? Or, does Pakistan not have the capacity to identify, own up and rectify?
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn January 30th, 2017
