PIA paralysed by powerful unions
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Following last month’s crippling protest and the subsequent changes in senior positions, the new Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) management team has its hands tied as Unions despotically assert their influence.
Nadeem Yusufzai, formerly of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), was appointed managing director of PIA on 11 February after the unions forced his predecessor Ejaz Haroon out of the job. However Yusufazi has had no time to settle into a role which is politically landmined, as unions and various other interest groups begin to squeeze the new MD.
According to the Express Tribune, items on their wish-list include appointments to lucrative positions for some of the leading members. To do so, unions are demanding management teams be expanded in order to create more high paying positions after Haroon downsized the teams during his tenure. Managers appointed by the former PIA head are also being squeezed out of the company as interest groups look to install their own people. Shockingly, all efforts and investigations into corruption are also expected to cease and that any files be handed over to the unions for deletion and or leverage.
An article in the Express Tribune quotes inside sources as saying that the state of PIA as one of administrative paralysis in the face of billions of rupees in mounting losses and unions exercising an inordinate degree of influence. The gross inefficiencies being pressed on the company by the Unions are crippling the business and affecting operations and passengers as a result. A PIA flight to Kuala Lumpur was recently forced to land by Indonesian Air Force jets because the flight operations department of the airline had failed to request permission to cross Indonesian airspace on the way to Malaysia. The flight eventually made it to Kuala Lumpur after several hours in Indonesia.
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