There was a continuing impasse in the negotiations between the PIA management and the Palpa office-bearers but they seemed to be going round and round in circles and were not reaching on a workable agreement. In the meantime, PIA passengers were suffering and so were the Hajis who were booked on various PIA flights for their return from Saudi Arabia.
It was good that a Standing Committee of the Senate intervened and the insistence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He is said to have personally stepped in to spur both parties into a workable agreement. It was then after a 7-day 'go-slow' and several hundred millions of rupees lost in over 90 cancelled flights that the PIA-Palpa face-off ended on Friday, October 9. It was decided to form a committee that would look further into the issues between PIA and Palpa. How this was done spoke volumes of the sense of accommodation that was evident between the employers, namely the Pakistan International Airlines and employees, the Pakistan Airlines Pilots Association. Keeping the national interest foremost, they amicably settled for an agreement that tided over the prevailing issues and the PIA schedule was again fully operative.
Throughout the crisis, the PIA management displayed the highest standards of patience and perseverance and the airline's top brass listened to the grievances of the pilots with the utmost sympathy. The pilots, represented by Captain Amir Hashmi, the PALPA President, and his accompanying team, also displayed restraint and high standards of professionalism. It was good to see that at no point did the management term the stand taken by the pilots as an extreme measure and continued to aim for a working relationship. There were reports though that a 'Plan B' was also in the works somewhere in the Aviation Division and resort would have been taken to deputing pilots from the armed forces had the PIA pilots stuck to their guns. The element of 'black sheep' in the aviation community also cannot be discounted, both at the management and the pilots' end. While the majority of the PIA pilots came out to be well-meaning individuals, certain troublemakers in their community made sure that a spanner was thrown into the works and the camaraderie that was always a feature of the relations between the PIA management and pilots, was severely disrupted.
As a result, operations of the airline were disturbed and the public was seriously inconvenienced. The cancellation of flights made a big dent in PIA's domestic and international flight schedule. The post-Hajj operation was also seriously disrupted. This happened when PIA had just successfully completed the pre-Hajj exercise only a few days back and was now ready to transport the Hajis from Jeddah to their different destinations in Pakistan.
The Hajis wanted to return to their homeland as soon as possible, following the twin tragedies of toppling of a huge crane in the Khana-e-Kaaba in Makkah and then a stampede in Mina. There were also so many Pakistanis dead whose bodies had to be brought back to Pakistan and the injured too had to be transported home. PIA pilots could not have been so heartless as leave their brethren Hajis to suffer at their hands. They were well aware of the problems faced by their countrymen. Therefore, the mischievous role of 'other' elements cannot be ruled out.
PIA suffered losses that went much beyond the disruption of its Hajj operation. The airline critically bled in other areas too. Normally taking for granted the immediacy of connections provided by air travel, those who blindly trust PIA now lost faith in it. If they were booked on PIA during the 'go-slow' period, they either cancelled their travel plans altogether or shifted to other airlines. Many people were not sure if PIA flights would ever take off. For that reason, they booked seats on other airlines, where possible. An upshot of this was also the fact that PIA's competitor airlines spiked their ticket fares. There were also no flights on routes where PIA operates flights as a 'socio-economic' necessity. The cancellation of bookings and passengers' use of other airline options happened both on the domestic and international network. And it happened just at a time when PIA was acutely cash-strapped and needed to earn every rupee of its due revenue.
To start with, conditions in the domestic airline industry in Pakistan are such that resort should not have been made by the Palpa members to effect a slowdown that disrupted the flight schedules of PIA. Perhaps other airlines were not affected because they do not have a massive domestic and international flight schedule like that of PIA.
It is in this respect that PIA cannot be treated like any other airline. It is a national institution that the people at large trust for transporting them within the country and abroad. This is a task and duty that both the PIA management and all their staff, including the pilots, are deeply aware of. They may have their disputes, as is likely to occur in any large service-oriented organisation, but the public must not suffer in any event. It is therefore gratifying that PIA is again fully fit and flying while negotiations continue between the management and the pilots.
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