PIA has no corporate identity… its aircraft tail is a jamawar sari!
Arif Ali Khan Abbasi | From InpaperMagzine | 23rd December, 2012
“Air accidents are the most unforgiving as they don’t even give you a
second to save yourself. And 97 per cent of all air accidents occur due
to human error. This is because today’s sophisticated aircraft is not
meant to crash due to mechanical problems. It only requires good
maintenance and handling by trained personnel and you need good
governance to take care of these two things. But if you can’t even do
that then something has to give and a fatal accident occurs such as
Pakistan International Airlines [PIA] Flight 268 in Nepal, and Airblue
and Bhoja Air crashes in Islamabad,” says PIA’s former Managing Director
Arif Ali Khan Abbasi. “It’s inexcusable for a pilot to fly into a cliff
like what happened with the PIA Airbus in Nepal killing all of the 167
passengers on board. But to date there has been no investigative report
on it published publicly. Unless you tell the world what you have done
and what you found out to avoid it in future you will never get the
travelling public’s confidence,” he explains.
“Absence of facts
gives birth to rumours. Maybe they think that the information is too
sensitive to share with the general public but if so it is even more
important that the people know about it,” he reasons.
“PIA’s staff was perhaps the most sophisticated manpower but it has now turned complacent due to the grants coming its way.
It started in Musharraf’s time and now the employees feel that they
don’t really have to work with the money coming in anyway,” he shares.
He continues, “Corporate identity is a very important thing for a company’s image. PIA’s corporate identity was one of the best in the world. Its aircraft tail was the most prominent one.
The bright red Swiss Air tail only came second to our green one. But
today, PIA has three or four colour schemes. If one aircraft tail looks
like a Jamawar sari, the other is another strange design.
Whoever designed these has no concept of corporate
identity, I’m sorry to say. People don’t understand the value of these
things. It has killed the pride of this only multinational company
directly competing with foreign companies,” the one‐time director and
three times general manager of the airline says with regret. — Shazia
Hasan
Retrieved from:
http://www.dawn.com/2012/12/23/pia‐has‐no‐corporate‐identity‐its‐aircraft‐tail‐is‐a‐jamawar‐sari/
Question:
A good overall corporate
image can be seen as the sum of all the images associated with the
firm’s individual product positions; what measures PIA should take to
regain the lost corporate image? 20 Marks
Solution:
The
Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production has formed a
two-member subcommittee aimed at improving the performance of the
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).
The Standing Committee on
Defence and Defence Production met here on Tuesday at the Parliament
House under the chairmanship of Senator Nisar Memon. Taking notice of
the increasing loss in the PIA and its poor performance, the Senate body
has directed the Defence Ministry and the PIA administration to take
immediate steps to pull the national carrier out of the present crises.
PIA
Chairman informed the committee that overall deficit of the PIA stands
at Rs 28.6 billion and in the first quarter of the current year, the
national airline faced Rs four billion loss while the amount stands in
2006 was Rs 12.8 billion.
He said fares has been increased by the
national airlines but there is no letup in the loss due to increase in
fuel prices. He said about 400 employees were recruited for one plane,
adding there was need to decrease their number.
The PIA chairman said in the past merit was violated in the PIA, adding
majority of the employees are the relatives of federal ministers and
parliament members. He said the European Union also had imposed ban on
the PIA planes, however, after holding negotiations with the EU, ban on
11 planes had been lifted, adding two A310 planes acquired from Turkey
had been handed over to Saga Airlines.
The PIA chairman told the
committee that there was no plan to sack the PIA employees, however,
under the reorganisation of the airline, golden handshake scheme would
be introduced. About the privatisation of the national airline, the PIA
chairman said he did not receive any directions in this regard, adding
he is not expert of the privatisation. He said PIA’s hotels in New York
and Paris earned profit, however, the PIA had no role in the
privatisation of Rose Wallet Hotel. It is the task of the Privatisation
Commission, he added.
The PIA chairman said 53 foreign
airhostesses were recruited from Greece, Thailand, Kenya, Malaysia,
Russia, Japan and Britain but contracts of 28 airhostesses out of 53
were cancelled while a number of airhostess resigned and the process to
sack other foreign airhostesses is underway. Defence Minister Rao
Sikandar Iqbal on the occasion warned that action would be taken against
the chairman, who are responsible for the current financial condition
facing the PIA. Later, Nisar Memon formed a two-member sub-committee to
prepare recommendations to improve the performance of the PIA.
Chairman
PIA expressed that the new management has taken over the airline at a
very critical point and the agenda is to turnaround the airline. He was
addressing the PIA officers and staff here on Thursday at the PIA
Training Centre Auditorium to motivate them and share the management’s
commitment to change the face of the airline by April 2013. He
categorically informed the employees that none of them would be sacked
from the airline as a policy. However, strict action may be put in place
on disciplinary grounds. Dereliction of duty will not be allowed and an
average employee will have to show 80 percent efficiency within his
sphere of work, he added.
Chairman PIA
emphasized that the present management was undertaking various studies
at jet speed to ensure efficient savings, career planning for the growth
of the employees on merit, ways for improving benefits for the
employees, pension policy and staff uniform so that the right man should
be placed at the right job to improve the performance of the airline.
He expressed confidence in the employees of PIA and said that they were
the biggest strength of the management even in difficult situations. He
said it is the employees of the corporation which have kept the airline
running and made it capable of conducting one of the best Hajj
operations in 2012 which has been acknowledged by not only people in
Pakistan but also by the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority and PIA was
determined best among 72 international airlines operating from Jeddah.
General (Retired) Asif Yasin Malik further informed that under the PIA
Revival Plan each operational area and department is under study and
soon major decisions would be in place to obtain greater potential
needed for the
turnaround of the airline. He informed the employees
that acquiring aircraft on dry lease is being done in complete
transparency and under independent observers to achieve the best in the
shortest possible time for improving the PIA fleet the sole revenue
earner of the airline. New destinations would be added, some of the
closed destinations would be reopened and the PIA Cargo Services would
be modernized.
He said that as a soldier he has been the upholder of
the country’s flag and since PIA is the National Flag Carrier, he would
ensure that with the collective efforts of all PIA employees this
airline keeps flying higher and higher.
