Pakistan’s interior minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan confirmed to the media that PIA’s acting chief executive officer Bernd Hildenbrand’s name is placed on exit control list. The interior minister said that Federal Investigation agency is probing the acquisition of Airbus A330. This plane was acquired by PIA from Srilankan airlines on wet lease to launch the premier service.
The premier service was launched by Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif in fanfare on 14 August 2016. The pm’s daughter termed the premier service as “brand Nawaz Sharif” and it was termed as revolutionary product for PIA as the airline’s service was not up to the standards and through premier the airline tried to revive its standards.
Bernd Hildenbrand joined PIA amid crises and to his credit has brought the airline from the abyss. He dramatically improved the performance of the airline and in last one year the airline carried one million more passengers than its used to carry before. Bernd Hildenbrand was appointed as the chief operating officer of the airline under when Nasser Jaffer was the chairman of PIA. He then applied for the position of Chief Executive Officer but the decision for this appointment is pending somewhere in the aviation division or PM secretariat. Bernd has brought in the much needed discipline in PIA that never existed in PIA for the last few decades. He also brought tight monitoring of the service and worked on the much needed aspects given the budget constraints.
On the other hand right from the day Bernd started working at PIA certain quarters have been busy plotting against him. First they tried to discredit him by spreading false news items in local media about his security clearance or the Aircraft leases or his travels. Once that failed to deter him they picked up the issue of Airbus A310 sale to a German Museum and for a film recording. They even brought in the Israeli element just to flame up the hatred against him. Once everything failed they have now resorted to dirty tricks but what we fail to understand is that in given circumstances how these elements will prove Bernd of things they are claiming he committed? Since we all know the CEO in PIA has no real authority or lets say it who in PIA has any authority?