“The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) must be owned by the government, and it should increase its fleet. This is the stance of the Executive Committee (EC) of the Pakistan Airline Pilots’ Association (PALPA) on behalf the association’s members. PALPA is against privatisation,” a PALPA EC representative said during a press conference here on Monday.
PALPA has strongly criticised the management of the PIA for delays in employees’ salaries, aviation policy, and wet leasing of aircraft.
PALPA President Captain Hamza said that the National Aviation Policy 2015 had failed to ground for the local aviation industry to flourish or even curb the challenges faced it. “The new aviation policy has failed to achieve the goals creating a local carrier friendly environment, capability building, job creation, and successful management of the PIA,” said Captain Hamza, adding that instead of having an industry-centric approach, the policy favours foreign airlines and organisations.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “the policy document for 2015 was prepared in isolation and entails more problems rather solutions. Instead of discussing item-wise specific issues and challenges faced by aviation in Pakistan, the report talks about mundane issues and practices of the industry that are not very relevant to ground realities in Pakistan.”
“In the absence of such on-ground analyses,” he added, “the policy can merely be termed as an aviation infrastructure development plan as it does not fulfil the requirements of an acceptable strategic plan, which is required to be based on a broad vision instead of a myopic one.”
“The quality of the report suggests that a systematic step-by-step approach necessary for the development of such documents which is practised all over the world has not been adopted. While developing such studies, it is imperative to initiate discussions with all relevant stakeholders such as the government, industry, and the public, and organise seminars and group discussions,” reasoned Captain Hamza.
PALPA General Secretary Captain Rizwan Ahmed expressed concern over inordinate delays and discrepancies in the disbursement of the employee salaries by the national airline.
“The matter pertaining to salary structure is the domain of the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Limited (PIACL) board members, who have not come to any decision yet as to what is to be done and what is not. All these salary anomalies were a result of inadequate briefing by the directorate of flight operations, human resource department, and the finance department, or probably incorrect minute taking of board meetings,” said the general secretary.
He added that the PIACL management is violating the Annexure-A of Admin Order No. 07/2016 dated 31st May 2016 unilaterally, in response to unprecedented cooperation by the pilot community in the larger interest of the airline.
“PALPA has almost run out of options and will soon be left with no options to work with. As per Admin Order No. 24/2016 dated 22nd September 2016, Night Flying Credit is also admissible which is pending from 1st April 2016 for unknown reasons, along with some amount which is being withheld every month, the reason for which is best known to PIACL management. The foreign allowance is also pending for many months now,” stated the secretary.
“Despite the assurances given by the PIACL Chairman PIA last month that this matter would be resolved within two weeks, the salary issues still persist. It is very difficult for us to explain to our pilots why their salary is being disbursed in two parts or why a portion of it is being withheld,” he added.
“As this is a breach of contract between the management of PIACL and PALPA, we will be left with no other choice but to revert back to PALPA-PIAC Working Agreement 2011-2013. We have already sought the opinion of our legal counsel, who inform us that this is a breach of contract between the two parties,” stated Captain Rizwan Ahmed.
After negotiations between PALPA and PIACL, three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed and Admin Order No. 07/2016 dated 31st May 2016 was issued in which Articles II and III of the PALPA-PIAC Working Agreement 2011-13 were revised.
The pilots were awarded 75 guaranteed hours instead of 50, along with revisions in flying allowance, basic salary, and house rent. Pilots’ postings to the other bases i.e. Islamabad and Lahore, logging of half the hours on LR flights, non-payment of executive allowances to PALPA executives, equation of the A-330 with B-777, and 10 hours of duty were enhanced to the limits of ANO and supy travel in economy class on A-320 (on domestic sectors) was also agreed to.
Moreover, contracts were also awarded to ATR pilots who were not PALPA members. Excess duty was adjusted in the revised pay package of pilots, in effect from April 1, 2016.
“The salary slips have not been distributed for the last two months and the salary which is depicted on the AIMS does not reflect the true salary which was paid,” he wrote in a letter in November. “International out-station allowances have not been disbursed since January 2016. It has become really difficult for pilots to cope-up with outstation expenses out of their own pockets. In such circumstances, it is not encouraging to continue flying on international routes without these allowances,” the letter stated.
