It’s always fascinating yet sad to watch a airline self-destruct. Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the flag carrier of Pakistan, is well on its way.
After a handful of incidents, the European Union added PIA to the dreaded black list (PDF). This is a list of airlines that are banned at least in part from flying to any EU country. Now it’s not easy to get on this list. There are apparently only three ways to get on this list:
a) Be based in Africa
b) Be based in the Kyrgyz Republic
c) Be in the “Axis of Evil”
Almost all of the airlines are either African or from Kyrgyzstan. The national airlines of North Korea and Afghanistan made the list as well. But now, there are a couple other outliers who have made the list apparently based on their merits alone. Air Bangladesh has one 747 banned from the EU while PIA has had all planes banned with the exception of its new 777s. Ouch.
Needless to say, this isn’t good. The chairman of the company resigned shortly after this news broke. Since the 777s are still allowed to fly to the EU, they’ve been maintaining their schedule fairly well. . . sort of.
This blog mentions how their two 777-300s clipped each other last week putting them out of service for at least a few days.
We could be watching the slow death of the airline if this keeps up. New entrant airblue must be waiting in the wings (despite its cheap knock off name) ready to pounce.
1 comment on “A Rough Month for PIA”
I won’t say that PIA is going down. Its just that the marketing environment has changed and cannot support PIA’s hefty HR load.
Airblue however is doing well. They recently got new aircraft (Airbus A319 – check my website) and will be getting new A320’s from this month or the next. Cheers for healthy competition. PIA will have to get its act straight.