Two near misses in one day! Our national air carrier comes in to land at Manchester and the landing is, oops – crump, scrunch, thump and clunk. What was the pilot thinking when he touched the tarmac? A rise? A sack? A fight with the Mrs? Bone tired to complain, the passengers let the higgledy-piggledy pass. Instead they fret about the final hop – Manchester /New York. A new captain has taken control at the wheel after we lift off for JFK in New York. The last leg is comfortable – good food and great service. Seven hours later, we come in to land. The lights of Manhattan lie scattered below like a thousand clusters – twinkling temptingly. The cabin crew is told to take their positions for landing and the passengers are made to sit in upright position with their food trays firmly rolled back and seat belts securely fastened. The wheels are out; the speed is slow and the engines almost off. The countdown begins – 5,4,3,2,1. Suddenly, we hear the engines revving like crazy and the pilot lifting the plane up instead of touching down. We feel the wheels going back in and the plane gaining height. The lights below begin to dim.

What’s wrong? What’s happened? Is there a problem with the landing gear? Has a hurricane hit us? Have terrorists struck? What has the pilot discovered at the eleventh hour?

The next 15 minutes are spent circling and circling around the ‘The Big Apple’. Once again the pilot descends gingerly and this time we touch down gently. Thank God! Seconds later, the cheery voice of our captain welcomes us to New York. He explains he had to abort the first landing because – you have to hear this! – a plane which was meant to have taken off didn’t! In simple language it means that we would have crashed into a parked plane. It’s a chilling thought to know that the air control traffic at JFK are blundering idiots. And that our pilot showed a remarkable presence of mind and saved us from crashing. But turn the argument around – was it an error of judgment of our pilot, swiftly rectified after he realised his mistake and before it was too late. Our national airline might know the answer but the passengers on flight PK 717 will never know.

Zafar A. Khan is the new PIA chairman. He’s a doer and a trouble shooter. Is he up to the task? To call him in when the airline is heading south towards bankruptcy just shows the callousness of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who stubbornly held on to his buddy Tariq Kirmani. All that the former chairman did was to beautify the planes and get their tails painted with the Pakistani flag and other cultural heritage symbols. The fleet made a pretty sight; the inside of the planes looked heavenly; the airline crew got a makeover – younger, perkier and pleasanter men and women; the in-flight servings doubled, getting richer and tastier; the entertainment video watching offered desire for sore eyes. In short, the airline swiftly rose to becoming a top class carrier truly for “great people to fly with”.

But Mr Hyde, the human face of the airline, was a Dr Jekyll all along. The demons began to get noticed as the carrier straddled the world and picked up satisfied fliers all around. One had to book many months in advance to get a seat because there were more passengers than planes. As a Pakistani, I felt proud. Then the ugly face of Dr Jekyll began to emerge. First the European Union began to grumble, warning that the planes were technically not worth flying and would be banned from over Europe unless PIA corrected the problem. The surly EU gave one year notice to the big bosses in PIA to put their planes in order. The prime minister, who considers himself a great fixer – from performing miracles with our economy to charming foreigners (except the US secretary of state Condi Rice who found his advances repellant), and his nominee turned a deaf ear to the warning. Sure enough, when the year was up, EU carried out its threat.

North America has joined the PIA-bashing club. Last week, before flying to America, I made a quick call to my travel agent in New York from Islamabad (the chap all Pakistanis buy their tickets from in the US). He gave me horrific news when I told him that I possessed a return ticket and would like him to make my booking from JFK to Islamabad. “PIA has suspended its flights from the US to Pakistan,” he told me. “That’s ridiculous!” I shot back, “why would they sell me a return ticket if flights out of America are not operating?” He had no reply.

So what’s the truth, who knows?

Did I tell you that my flight originated early Sunday morning at Islamabad where I had to turn up in the middle of the night to check in and then spend the next six hours flying to Karachi and being harassed at the airport by the FIA guys? Zombie-like, the passengers were ordered to and fro by the security personnel who had zero coordination with PIA staff on the ground. Our onward journey for NY had yet to start but we were already flaked out with our Karachi experience.

A word of warning: the men and women checking us at Islamabad and Karachi are not professionals nor their methods in sync with international standards. Their systems and techniques are antediluvian. Is anyone listening?