PIA in crisis

Nobody doubts the sincerity of chairman PIA, who went out of his way to acquire billions of rupees to rejuvinate the national airline and make it financially viable.
However, he somehow or the other forgot to rid the airline of the dead wood and corrupt individuals, who excelled in buttering every CEO, that PIA had over the last decade. Qualified professionals who have specialised in their respective cadre alone can deliver.
They may not devote time to satisfy the ego of chief executive, but they would have certainly delivered and today a proud CEO could have claimed success. Honest financial officers, sales executives and professionally qualified engineers, who do not have skeletons to hide, could have been an asset for chairman. Unfortunately he ended up with team of conniving crooks, who kept him in the dark.
The financial wizard he appointed was required by NAB for PIA Duty Free Shops scandal and scores of other pending cases. There were then two flyers, who were recommended to him by his cronies. Their arrogance and connivance landed this airline into a mess which has become an uphill task to cleanse. Information given to chairman PIA was doctored and filtered.
He was isolated from all employees. Seniority and merit were brutally mauled.
Even the ministry of defence was involved in some of these excesses. No officer who has financial involvement in any business concern involved with aviation, can be assigned any executive high profile role.
In fact no employee of PIA should be allowed to have a business establishment, owned by self or family, which deals with aviation. An airline's main business is passenger and cargo revenue. There is fierce competition in the market since the advent of Open Sky policy. Fare structures for passenger and cargo have to be competitive. A loyal ethnic clientele was taken for granted.
High yield passengers from the Gulf and Middle East were harassed by charging far hand baggage. The Pakistani origin UK passengers were levied a superfluous tax. At the same time overpriced spare parts, that were not even required, were being ordered by companies owned by retired and serving PIA employees. Flight kitchen items were procured from specific companies mostly owned by errant employees. This "Penny Wise and Pound Foolish" policy resulted in loss of loyal ethnic clients.
The chairman unfortunately was fed with unnecessary petty information. Those involved with petty thefts were hanged, while those who robbed billions were let off. Discipline within the top executives was at an all-time low. It was considered macho to fool around with subordinate female staff willing to oblige, who enjoyed special privileges in return. Poor honest worker was harassed and demoralised. The chairman finally replaced his COO. However he now has a team of retired uniformed officers, who feed him information like who arrives late and who stays back late in office.
A former Air Force officer is interested only in buying expensive new aircraft, while revenues are on a sharp decline. The brand new Boeing 777s have had more than their share of teething problems. Multinationals run by professionals insist that executives work only from 9 to 5 ie 8 hours a day. PIA had a devoted and guaranteed set of loyal ethnic passengers. All that these common folk required was proper service, ease in reservation, and protection from travel and cargo agencies, which had over the years exercised a monopoly in Sales and Reservation. The cooks and crooks who spoiled the broth could not and will not be able to deliver. The over 50% empty seats on trans-atlantic and European sectors calls for surgical review.