Former Chairman of Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) Abdul Basit on Tuesday urged the government to declare Pakistan International Airline (PIA) as Essential Services and put a complete ban on all sort of unions in the National Flag Carrier.
In a statement issued here on Tuesday, Basit who was also a former LCCI Senior Vice President said that the PIA must not be allowed to play with the precious lives of people therefore, either its operations should be stopped or its new Chairman should be given a free hand to take corrective measures and tackle issues.
Abdul Basit said that the PIA had reached the point that a number of frequent travellers including diplomats and law makers had pointed finger at its performance while terming it dangerous to fly with. He said that PIA would again become number one airline provided its Chairman is authorised to take stringent measures.
He said that the appointment of a new chairman has given the people hope that the PIA is going to get back its lost glory but everybody knows the culture of unionism did not allow any person to do anything. The LCCI former Senior Vice President said that it was very unfortunate that all PIA offices in the country look more like a union office than an airline office. Abdul Basit said that situation is already not encouraging as all the 22 Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) that are eating up more than Rs 400 billion annually while unionism in PIA is adding fuel to the fire and pushed it to the wall.