Karachi: Director General Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, Air Marshal (Retd) Muhammad Yousaf on Monday at Headquarters CAA inaugurated the revamped website of Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority as part of its on-going improvement program.
The primary objective is to make it more informative, user-friendly and able to meet the information needs of the general public as well as aviation professionals. DG CAA while inaugurating the revamped website highlighted the importance of information technology and its application especially in the context of aviation industry.
He also indicated that essential aspect of the revamped website is the feedback mechanism.
DG CAA encouraged all users to send their feedback and comments focused on the betterment of the website on a continual basis.
Access to the new revamped website would be available through its beta version through the homepage of existing website. Direct access to new CAA website would be made available through caapakistan.com.pk within a week time. CAA Directors were also present on the occasion.
It would have been much better if the CAA revamped its role as a regulator/authority of the country's aviation sector. To me sadly our CAA always seemed to be more focused on favouring the foreign carriers rather than creating an environment which would help the indigenous aviation industry to grow. Pakistan which happens to be among the most populous countries in the world sadly has local airline industry comprising four carriers only of which three are international carriers as well. A nation which has a population in excess of 220 million has on any given day not more than 30 operable airplanes from all four airlines put together. This is the sad state of affairs of Pakistan's aviation industry.
It is convenient to bash PIA for all its vices and infidelities but has any one ever thought of mr. regulator, the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority.
After all it is the responsibility of CAA to ensure framing of aviation policies that creates an environment which leads to growth of the overall aviation business. Had everything been wrong only with PIA then the other carriers of Pakistan would have prospered. While one should commend and appreciate the way both PA and especially NL have doing their business lately but these carriers too are no novices in this business. NL has been around for a good twenty years and it still has not been able to sustain any long haul operations. Still barely manages a fleet of mostly narrow bodied airplanes. PA on the other hand seems to be losing the plot now as it is finding it difficult to keep going as a profitable venture even after 10 years of operations.
Why do we forget what happened to other carriers like hajvairy, aeroasia, bhoja, that came up and left the business as they could not function profitably. In such a populated country why do carriers find it difficult to run their business efficiently.
Pakistan has Air Services Agreements with 96 countries all over the globe. Even if the Pakistani carriers target the ethnic Pakistani market it should be no real problem in mounting flights to Europe, UK, Far East, China, USA/Canada. If all the problems are with PIA then who’s stopping the other two carriers to launch flights to destinations where there are sizable Pakistani markets.
Why is it that these private carriers do not dare going beyond the three hour/3000 km perimeter? Is PIA stopping them from doing that? It begs a question, there is something seriously wrong with the overall aviation scenario of the country.
Would the banking industry have grown if the State Bank of Pakistan had not formulate policies which fostered growth of the over all industry in Pakistan.
For starters it would be important to note how our CAA has been dishing out traffic rights to Gulf carriers for the last two decades, exactly the time the downfall of PIA started. The gulf carriers have been dumping capacity in Pakistan and have driven out the indigenous players from the market. Not only this, due to the excessive capacity of the gulf carriers the other huge airlines like LH,AF,KL,SQ,SU,LX,BA [the list goes on] which once flew to Pakistan and especially KHI, have left this huge market simply because they cannot compete on the price points with gulf carriers.
EK by the way is contemplating a 6th daily frequency to KHI come summer 2015 if not earlier. If EK alone is operating an average of 4000 seats both ways daily on KHI alone, other than the likes of QR, FZ, EY, WY, GF all of which are entitled to operate almost unchecked number of frequencies to other point in Pakistan, I don’t think Pakistan aviation market can ever grow. Unless the CAA sets an even playing field and looks at safeguarding the commercial interests of indigenous players these airlines of the oil producing companies will continue to wreak havoc in the Pakistan, all at the expense of the local carriers.
