Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Sunday surprised many by taking off a flight to Karachi with only two passengers aboard, thus causing huge loss to the airline. PIA’s special flight PK-7313 arrived at the Karachi airport from Jeddah, with only two passengers on-board, despite a capacity of 220 passengers.
Although a special flight is only operated, when the required number of passengers is achieved, but it is still a dilemma that why flight took off with only two passengers which was against the rules of the airline. If the visionless authorities could have wished to do better, passengers could have been accommodated in the flight of some other airline or provided with compensation.
PIA is currently facing losses worth more than Rs 300 billion, just because of the poor strategy of its officials regarding flight and other operations. The corruption-plagued national carrier is already conducting domestic and international operations with billions of rupees losses to the national kitty every year. It is tragic that the business of the politicians are making profit manifold but when it comes to the institutions run by the government more or less all the institutions are on the decline. Is there some hidden agenda to pave the way for the privatization of the national airline?
The prime minister has asked PIA chief Shujaat Azeem to conduct an inquiry into the matter to fix responsibility while deducting the amount from salaries of the officers responsible to make up the loss. It is hard to digest that in our country an inquiry is required to investigate the matters that should have been solved with common sense. It is a fact that moral standards build a nation and lack of good governance creates a vacuum that very often is filled by the non democratic forces.