On 27th of January PIA finally lost the services of AVM Niaz Rtd, who has served it more than Viqar Azeem, Aijaz Ali, Noor Leghari etc put together. The deals that he saw through like state of the art seats, in-flight music etc for PIA's brand new B777, leasing of A-310s, and grounding of ageing A300 and a few old B747s, are remarkable proof of his negotiating skills.
The A310s have been reportedly taken on lease at a nominal cost of $50,000 per month. In addition to that PIA will have to pay extra for maintenance of Pratt and Whitney engines installed on them. In the 10-year lease without option to purchase PIA would have paid no more than $30 million per aircraft, excluding the cost of engine maintenance. It now plans to sell its ageing fleet of A300 and two Boeing 747-200s.
However PIA shall take on lease these aircraft for next Haj and Umra operation, like it has been doing for the last 10 years. At least PIA will save the parking charges it would have paid to CAA, were it to retain them for use.
Niaz's departure from PIA will be a loss that it may never recover from. The void created by his absence will take time to fill. He has left PIA in a state, which it has never gone through before.
Compared to him, men like Viqar Azeem, Aijaz Ali, Khurshid Anwar etc, look like babes. Although he was supposed to have retired on 31st December 2004, yet Niaz came to his office regularly, to set the files properly and perhaps to teach a few skills to the many who held farewell dinners for him.
His tenure and sudden departure are a loss for this airline and indeed to the nation.