In wake of PIA’s possible privatisation, a lot of people have taken to social media to give their 2 cents worth. Fair enough, it is a debate of public interest. However, most of the statuses I have read are targeted on PIA’s employees – not the organisation as a whole but the employees alone. Facebook statuses and subsequent comments have labelled PIA’s employees as “good for nothing”, “haramkhors”, “useless employees”, “they are getting overpaid, now who likes to loose a job which pays even when ur sleeping” and so on.
I am the daughter of a man who served 37 years in PIA. For all of my life, my father worked for the national airline and retired from it in 2010. Six years on, I still find him passionate about the organisation he worked for. Many evenings, he is on the phone conversing with his former colleagues and friends about the inevitable doom of the airline and what could and should be done to rectify it. My father does not fit any of the aforementioned generalised labels people have been very kind to pass. He worked hard for a living; he was loyal to the organisation. It is from my father that I learned to work honestly and with complete dedication to any job I take. I am nowhere close to where I want to be in my career but my biggest strength is that I have never disappointed an employer of mine no matter what job I took on or how much I personally despised it. I must have done something right to be appreciated by all employers of mine and that is I have followed by my father’s ways. My father is an earnest man and he instilled the same values in my sisters and me.
So before you go ahead judging all employees by the same scale, let me ask a question. How many of you are aware that every time the government changes, be it PML-N or PPP, the top management of PIA does too to reflect the governing party? With a Punjabi government, PIA sees an influx of Punjabis all around and the same with Sindhis when PPP wins an election. I am not being a racist here but surely, you should be made a GM or a Director based on your qualifications, achievements and merits – not mere association to the Prime Minister? Or maybe that’s just me. These executives have come and gone with the country’s general elections. I recall my father in the past commenting on how people of various high positions don’t have the ability to construct a grammatically correct sentence in English, let alone understand the aviation industry. So yes, some employees are useless good for nothing but they didn’t get the job based on merits. We all know how they got the job. If you want to blame somebody, question the government.
Further, how many of you are aware of the lesser known or rather, more popularly forgotten fact that it was indeed PIA that helped to establish Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Somali Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Air Malta and Yemini. Today, Emirates is one of the leading airlines globally. So, it was then PIA’s “useless employees” that trained Emirates employees back in the day. To reiterate, it is the government that has driven PIA to failure by placing incompetent men in high positions of significant importance and decision-making. Had they allowed for men like my father to continue to climb the corporate ladder with experience, PIA would still be one of leading airlines today.
PIA has employed many people who are loyal to it. They have experienced PIA’s glory and want to see it return. These employees are like my father and his friends and countless others. For all those who are supporting PIA’s privatisation, remember Nawaz Sharif is doing it so he can sell it to his grand-daughter’s in-laws. It’s going to become one of their family’s businesses. You’re not going to benefit from it. It is a personal gain and a national loss.
Oh, and the tax payer’s money – did you know that PIA has its own medical establishment? They have hospitals and clinics and all their employees (from peons to directors) get free medical and dental treatment along with their families? With PIA, you don’t have to be a manager to get your family treated for an illness, which I think is commendable given the inflation in Pakistan; even a clerk can afford decent medical treatment for his family.
To conclude, as I have digressed quite a bit, I am proud of my PIA background. I am proud that my father served the national airline. I am proud of my father and his friends. I am proud that there are innumerable employees who go day after day and work relentlessly to make a difference in an airline which everyone is quick to judge and criticise. For if it was not for men like my father, this airline would have closed many years ago.
Jafarey's Blog ® 