PIA suspends two staffers for misplacing luggage of Farooq Naek's wife

[Naveed Yaseen]

(Naveed adds: Farooq Naek's is former lawyer of Zardari. That qualification is sufficient in Pakistan to become chairman of senate)

Muhammad Ahmad Noorani
PIA authorities have suspended two staffers on the complaint of the wife of the chairman senate in an incident involving the misplacement of her luggage on board a domestic PIA flight, it was learnt.

According to details, Mrs Naek had travelled from Islamabad to Karachi on October 4 on PIA flight PK-309 and reportedly placed her luggage, a trolley bag, on the back of her seat. A PIA co-pilot, Rizwan Gondal was reportedly also travelling as non-operating crew in the same flight and he too had a trolley bag which was placed somewhere nearby the luggage of Mrs Naek. On landing at Karachi, Mrs Naek found that her trolley bag was missing. She complained to the staff there and after investigations it was found that a crew loader had mistakenly taken the luggage of Mrs Naek believing it belonged to Mr. Gondal. The situation was settled in minutes and luggage of Mrs Naek was returned to her safely.

According to unconfirmed reports however, the chairman senate’s wife gave a piece of her mind to the airline’s staff. Subsequently, Senate Secretariat wrote a letter to PIA on October 5, 2009, to launch an inquiry and take action against the staff of the flight for this “inconvenience” to the wife of the Senate chairman and report back to the Senate Secretariat by October 10, 2009.

PIA authorities immediately took action and issued orders of suspension of two female staff members, a A2 galley worker Monika Roshan and a Senior Airhostess Husna Baloch who unfortunately don’t seem to have to do anything with the entire issue.

When contacted, staff officer to Chairman Senate, Major ® Hussnain told The News that the luggage of Mrs Naek had been returned to her within some time and it was safe and nothing was lost. “When a VIP is travelling, it is the responsibility of the PIA staff to take care and that the staff is responsible for the luggage of VIP personality,” he added.

On the question of whey then had the secretariat of Chairman Senate written a letter to the PIA asking it to launch an inquiry and to report to the secretariat by October 10, Hussnain replied that the letter was written with good intentions. Hussnain alleged that there is a mafia in PIA, which used to steal luxury luggage of the passengers and our intention of writing this letter was to get this mafia exposed. Hussnain repeatedly rejected that any misuse of authority was made by the Senate chairman for writing this letter through his protocol officer. He also admitted that PIA has informed the secretariat that two female staff members have been suspended in the case.

PIA’s GM Public Affairs Syed Sultan Hassan while talking to The News said that he can confirm only that said incident took place on October 4 and that PIA has received a letter from an official of the Senate. “I am not aware of the proceedings of the inquiry or investigations into the issue,” Sultan said. However, Flight Operations Director Capt ® Shuja Naqvi while talking to The News admitted that investigations into the issue have not been completed yet. Asked that if it was binding on PIA the action could have been taken against the co-pilot who mistakenly sent other trolley bag through crew loader and why the poor ladies were suspended in a situation when he himself is admitting that investigations are not completed and both the ladies have not been given the opportunity of hearing, he said that according to rules at the start of inquiry those who are involved are suspended. Capt ® Naqvi did not explain however as to who accused these two particular ladies when the matter of mistaken offloading by the loader had already been settled.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=202475