I live in Altrincham, a suburb of Manchester where I am in constant touch with the very well knit local community of immigrant Pakistanis. These days I am on one of my frequent visits to Lahore. For most of us expatriates, the deterioration of PIA is a key concern for it is our chief link with Pakistan. PIA's recent change of livery and the green colour scheme of tail and fuselage of its aircrafts have shocked us all. Our complaints about the damage done to this precious brand by Ahmed Saeed and Tariq Kirmani have been largely ignored and we have witnessed our national airline decay very fast. We are all very aware of the gross mismanagement at PIA's Manchester office, which till a year back, was a key generator of revenue for PIA's UK operation. It is now reduced to a loss making station because of rampant cronyism at the top. PIA's top man in Manchester started his career working in a PIA hotel in Karachi and was later inducted to traffic from where he has come into operations where he now heads the key PIA hub in UK. His qualification, they say, is that he provides personalized services to top PIA management apart from doing the assignment of looking after the family of a senior PIA executive settled here. PIA revenue passengers are a secondary issue at this station as yields no longer matter for career promotions. In the process if PIA's profitability at Manchester becomes a casualty, that does not seem to bother those at helm. PIA's loss has been Air Blue's and British Airways' gain in Manchester. -IRFAN BUTT, Manchester, UK, via e-mail, February 2.