Why no chants of accountability of PIA Pilots?

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Why no chants of accountability of PIA Pilots?

by Noon Meem Laam



We as a nation are fixated with politicians and political parties. There are many holy cows in the country like the Armed Forces, Judiciary, Media big guns, some industrialists and many other professionals who are chosen to be ignored by our intelligentsia and “civil society”. One reason for the deliberate ignorance can be that they belong to the same privileged classes. One such group of holy cows that remain scot free are PIA Pilots. The PIA Pilots have a Pakistan Airline Pilots Association (PALPA) which at very regular intervals chooses to arm twist the PIA management into meeting their demands. How they do so is by employing tactics of “go-slow”.


A go-slow employed by PIA Pilots is causing a loss to PIA and passengers
The PIA Pilots have been going slow for the last 9 days in which many flights have been delayed or cancelled. Off course, such tactics are not improvement of the organization but for meeting of their personal demands. These include matters regarding pensions, tickets, allowances and duty hours. Pilots can legally refuse to fly if they claim to be unfit and this is exactly what they are doing.

According to a report in Express Tribune, flight cancellations have caused a loss of over Rs. 1 billion to PIA while the mental agony to passengers has no price. Some passengers missed flights and were risked with prospects of losing their jobs. Some had onward connections while some had emergencies.

Will our civil society choose to call for accountability of PIA pilots? Will members of the media (especially a lady anchor from GEO, whose father has been a president of PALPA on a few occasions) who has done programs on the Airblue tragedy, do programs highlighting the tactics of go-slow by the PALPA?

Will our judges take suo-moto of this loss to national assets and call the PALPA to court?

I guess not! It is only politicians who will face accountability. No one else.

Why no chants of accountability of PIA Pilots? by Noon Meem Laam