THIS is with reference to the report “‘On sale’ PIA has 304 employees per plane, NA committee told” (July 9). According to the report, there are 43 airports out of which the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) operates 22, and 13 of these airports are international.

PIA has 10,233 employees, including 7,399 permanent and 2,924 outsourced. Selling the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is a wise step as any airline having 304 employees per aircraft cannot be kept functional. But what about the staff currently employed by the Airport Security Force (ASF). There are currently as many as 15,565 employees, including 14,135 uniformed and 873 civilians. They are deployed at 22 operating airports. This mean that we have 707 ASF personnel at each of these 22 airports. This number appears to be quite high.

Just as there is this employees-per-aircraft formula, can someone educate us if we have similar international formula for security staff per airport? And what is the optimum number of staff at busy airports that operate hundreds of flights?

S. Nayyar Iqbal Raza
Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2024