PIA, the national flagcarrier, was created to provide quality air service to Pakistani nationals and foreigners that visited our country. It was never meant to be an organization to cater for employment of the least qualified, or the children of employees or cronies of sitting government or the spoilt, under-qualified, wards of our civil and military bureaucracy. This airline has just under 40 serviceable aircrafts but is running into massive losses..... over Rs 50 billions in 2008 alone that have to be financed by unmanageably piling debts. Yet the wild spending spree continues with more people being hired everyday, be they pilots, hostesses, stewards, engineers or administration cadre officers. This, despite an employee to aircraft ratio that is already the highest in the world. For a fleet of under 40 aircrafts, the airline needs no more than 560 pilots, 800 cabin staff, 560 engineers and the minimal staff in sales and traffic departments which are being reduced all over the world because of E-ticketing and other latest innovative techniques. PIA, though, is a nursery for children of the favoured ones in our government who join as trainee pilots, engineers etc, get trained and after acquiring some skills and experience, leave for greener pastures. PIA already has more than its required strength of pilots, with over 100 still waiting to be trained for over two years. And yet, still more are being hired. An independent inquiry would reveal that nepotism and cronyism, coupled with widespread corruption and indiscipline have been the cause of failure of this airline, which was once among the best in Asia. -ANEELA CHANDIO, Sukkur, via e-mail, February 8.