HEMAYET Ally Khan in his letter ‘Plight of PIA pensioners’ (Feb 28) has highlighted a pressing grievance.
Employers allow their pensioner to cash half of his 10 years’ pension in advance. The pensioner pays back this ‘advance’ by commuting half of his monthly pension for 10 years.
The armed forces which also provide this facility, with some variations, revert to full pension when the advance is paid up. This happens automatically without any hassle. But not in PIA.
The deduction into PIA is for life.
The aggrieved pensioner is quite fragile, 10 years after retirement. He gets senile: the vigour is missing.
If pension rules of the armed forces are cited, the reply is curt: “But you are semi-government”. It is made to sound like a disease of some kind, and so the matter rests.
PIA is part of the defence ministry and has served it well. In the 1965 war when the country was caught off guard, and the US had slapped a killing arms embargo, our guns were falling silent.
PIA Boeings flew all-night flights to Istanbul, Ankara and Tehran. The crew slept in cockpit seats while the much needed arms were loaded and then flown back before daybreak.
The lurking Indian jet fighters had to be avoided. PIA kept up this supply for the entire 17-day war.
Again in 1971 when the Indians blocked their airspace, 10 PIA Boeings were continuously airborne, circumnavigating the Indian peninsular to East Pakistan. A wide berth had to be given to the Indian coastline. A couple of thousand extra miles were thus added.
Three army divisions were transported in just over a week. PIA aircraft were fired upon by the Mukti Bahini whilst taking off and landing and harassed by Indian jet fighters en route.
A PIA aeroplane was even shot down in the vicinity of Karachi. Its crew still lie buried on the Ocean floor.
The wreck of a crashed Boeing 707 was seen at the end of the Urumuchi (China) runway for years. The crew, which included a major-general in the cockpit, did survive.The supply line from China was also kept alive by PIA.
PIA pensioners do not seek dissolution of their semi-government status because of their exceptional performance. Reverting to full pension after PIA has recovered its commutation ‘loan’ remains their right even if they are semi-government. Just two paltry revisions in more than forty years has reduced the pension of older retirees to a ‘pittance’. PIA steals half of even this ‘pittance’ towards an open-ended ‘commutation’.
The airline starts deducting half the pension of all their pensioners from the day they retire to their graves.
CAPT. S. AFAQ RIZVIKarachi