Editorial

PIA retires its last Airbus A310s from service

PIA Airbus A310s resting at Jinnah International airport. (Image courtesy Captain Arosh Naqvi)

With the dawn of 2017 PIA’s oldest aircrafts in its fleet Airbus A310s will go their final resting place at Karachi’s Jinnah International airport. PIA has two Airbus A310s flying with it in the last week of 2016 as one by one it retired them or they were grounded. In total PIA used 13 Airbus A310s in its history and in last days only two were active with one in great shape.

Pakistan international airlines Airbus A310 took off from Lahore on flight PK-307 for Karachi for last time on a revenue flight and reached at 11.45 PM. The other plane AP-BGP took off for the last time from Muscat to reach Karachi at 12.24 AM on new year. With this a chapter in PIA’s history came to a close. Third Airbus A310 with registration AP-BGO developed some problems with its wing and it was brought back from Tokyo Narita after it remained stuck there while PIA found out relevant technicians to remedy the problem.

What will happen to these retired airliners is not rocket science as they will mostly rust at Karachi airport like many other airframes or they will broken down like many other A310s. Because last time when PIA advertised for auction nobody applied and only a museum in Germany wanted to buy the plane. The plane was sold to the sole bidder as nobody else applied for it. While lobbies inside PIA are trying to project through ignorant Pakistani media that some sort of mishap was done through this deal and the CEO has something to do with it.

Ready for next load at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International airport. PIA’s Airbus A310

Nobody has bothered to look at the bidding process, nobody thought they can check how the process of auctioning a plane works and the CEO is not the sole person to decide as there are directors who look after specific tasks. But its seems easier to name the ceo then others. And why we are forgetting that these aircrafts are around 23 year old and there is very limited market for these aircrafts in passenger capacity. So clearly someone in PIA in collusion with few usual suspects in media is playing politics and their aim is to get rid of PIA ceo Bern Hildenbrand. Emboldened by the resignation of Azam Saigol these elements are now trying to destroy all the hard work that was done in previous year because in the rusting, degraded good for nothing PIA is their survival and survival of their political benefactors and puppeteers.

So with this in sight the only hope is that government uses its brain and approves the appointment of Bernd Hildenbrand as the CEO of PIACL and keep the airline safe from these babus whose hands are red with the blood of this national asset. Because over the last 3 decades these babus and their cronies have shown what they are capable of so its about time government let the professionals run the organisation if it is sincere in turning PIA around. But thats a big if and so far we have seen the government has shown resilience to tackle the unruly unions and associations but not the muscle to hold the culprits to account. We are sure that without rolling some heads nothing could be achieved as the babus know they will be rescued even if they loose billions in matter of days.

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