Allah Maalik

JUNE 2001 - When the toilet blew open (how appropriate) on PIA Flight PK 305 on May 25th while it was cruising at 28,500 feet causing the flying debris of unmentionables to jam the stabilizer compartment, damage the hydraulic system and the APU fuel line, it placed the 15-20 year old Airbus and its passengers in a life threatening situation. The damage caused the aircraft to tilt up which would have led to stalling and that we all know, is curtains in aero terms. Mercifully, there was an extra cockpit crew on board and they physically forced the control column to normalize the plane’s trim and land the plane. ‘Allah Maalik’ as PIA would put it. In the end, all went well and the Airbus now lies grounded along with another four while experts inspect structural flaws. Apparently, there are problems.

While the human error element in this case is not the main point – there is error since the plane was reportedly ‘inspected’ and ‘’cleared’ only in January this year by PIA’s largest over-staffed department of engineering, there are other allied stories that deserve mention. Why is it that every time there is a problem, the airline staff behaves in the worst manner? To every misfortune that befalls PIA passengers, the airline’s standard answer is, ‘Allah Maalik’.There is not much PIA staff can do about Airbuses which should not be flying anymore for it, but people dealing doesn’t require high technology, only consideration and concern. Over the years, there are hundreds of horror stories where PIA staff was the first to ditch their passengers. Stories about passengers stranded at airports of the world, including in their own country, are legendary. No seats, no food, no hotels and worse of all, no one to reassure genuinely worried people whose only sin is that they paid money to travel their national airline. Babies without milk, mothers with unmanageable baggage and children, the elderly and infirm and the regular travelers – all at the mercy of flunkies who have long since disappeared or if present, are glib liars and direct descendents of Attila the Hun. Why is it like that? They couldn’t care less? Obviously, but is that all? What makes people in charge of things, callous and harsh when ordinary people placed at their mercy, are denied basic human courtesy? PIA cannot improve its aircraft because it is not an airline but a derelict beggar, but the people who adorn its uniform don’t have to behave like monsters.

There are reports that at the first sign of trouble on PK 305, the oxygen masks didn’t fall. Some did, most didn’t. Because of decompression, people started bleeding through their noses, others fainted and everyone panicked, quite naturally. PIA cabin crew by this time had deserted their posts and their passengers and safely secured their rumps to their seats from where they watched, as people grew more and more agitated. Eventually two engineers helped passengers with their masks and reassured them that the danger was over, but where were the sour-faced airhostesses and the stewards? Couldn’t have been in the toilet since there wasn’t one. Of course this is not the first time such behaviour has been witnessed. At airports, lounges, booking offices, inside aircraft, the same indifference that is now PIA’s recognizable signature, holds sway. Nine out of ten times, if you have a problem, they have no solution. ‘Allah Maalik’ is the SOP. The ‘advice’ is usually of least help and passenger requests are met with stony silence or simply ignored. Now and then, the lucky traveler runs into a human being at PIA and then things are good, but this is rare.

Five days after the Airbus incident, there was another bizarre scene at Lahore airport as passengers were off loaded from PK 387 that had flown in from Islamabad en route to Multan on the grounds that the plane had developed a ‘technical’ fault and they would be boarding another aircraft to continue their journey. Of course no such thing happened. The passengers watched in disbelief as their plane, merrily changed nomenclature and went off to Delhi. When it returned at 9 pm that night, the passengers who had been stranded since 330 pm at the airport, were sent off to Multan at 10 pm! So, anyone flying PIA from Islamabad to Multan can do so in about 9 hours, the time in which other airlines take you to your home anywhere in Europe! Even cattle receive better treatment in trucks and to think that this is done to passengers whose money makes it possible for the airline to still operate? Agreed, operate is used here in the widest sense since hobbling is closer to the truth.

It is true that all airlines cannot be all things to all people all the time. Flights get cancelled, seats get mixed up, food can be bad, service even worse and officials, unhelpful, but apart from a few of the world’s unmentionable airlines, perhaps it would be no exaggeration to say that by and large, PIA treats its paying passengers with contempt and callousness. Engineering has nothing to do with it. The problem is one of attitude. Ironically, all it takes is a little gesture to reassure someone, make someone comfortable. Every airline tries to do that. Why is PIA so poor when hospitality is such a central point in our daily lives here? What airlines like PIA fail to understand is that one kindness works for years and influences the opinion of so many years later. In 1979, traveling on perhaps the world’s cheapest air ticket and on TWA, now long buried, I was one of the 200 odd passengers somewhere at the tail end of the plane as we flew from Paris to Rome. I fell asleep and when I woke up, found that lunch was long over. Still wondering if I could get a meal, I saw the airhostess heading my way. She said that since I was fast asleep she didn’t want to wake me up – there was a blanket draped over me as well, but there was a little time left before landing and if I wanted she could bring me lunch. I saw Rome having lunch and I have never forgotten her face or her consideration. What did it cost her or TWA?

What is wrong with PIA is a national debate. PIA is everyone’s pet hate. It doesn’t help the airline’s cause when doors of a Chitral bound flight fly off or a jumbo lands in Islamabad without the undercarriage (the pilot forgot) or passengers from a crashed Fokker outside Peshawar stagger out of the debris, cross a field and take a rickshaw home or a London bound flight sits on the Lahore tarmac in blazing summer for almost the whole day while one lie after another is fed to the people or the ordeal of thousands stranded with confirmed seats and no seats or toilets that are always messed, food that often tastes like something the cat brought in and the best seats and highest priority is given to non-revenue travelers, or absence of magazines, in flight entertainment, duty free shopping on international flights – the list is long. It’s probably the world’s most over staffed airline and also the world’s most inconsiderate one and it needs drastic surgery. NOW. PIA’s standard reply to all misfortunes that befall its hapless passengers, ‘Allah Maalik’ will not see the airline into the new millennium.