PAKISTAN has the potential to build a world-class aviation industry, but it lacks a modern ecosystem built on safety, commercial discipline, technology, investment confidence and regulatory consistency. Our commercial aviation industry remains decades behind leadingmarkets. The key challenge is to understand why we have failed to keep pace with the world at large.

Pakistan has historically presentedelevated risks in several critical areas, like regulatory oversight, safety standards, maintenance capability, insurance, foreign-exchange controls and legal protections. Pakistan needs an independent, technically competent and digitally enabled regulator, supported by risk-based and data-driven oversight.

Aircraft leasing requires a predictable legal framework covering registration, deregistration,repossession,taxation, insurance and repatriation of legitimate payments. Also,professionalmanagement, route economics, fleet optimisation, revenue management and rigorous cost control are essential for sustainability.

Our ambition should be beyond passenger airlines. Pakistan can be a regional maintenance-repair-overhaul (MRO) centre, dealing with aviation training, technology, cargo, aircraft components, leasing and airport services.

What Pakistan lacks is not aviation talent or opportunity, but a modern system capable of converting these advantages into sustainable commercial success. We need a 10-year national aviation transformation programme, and we need to begin now.

AVM (retd) Imran Majid Karachi