Last nail in PIA’s coffin: How Government mishandled PIA’s case?Shafaqna opinion

by Tauqeer Abbas
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Shafaqna Pakistan: Once considered as one of the finest air carrier PIA is at the verge of total collapse because of maladministration, negligence, nepotism and corruption. The current state of the national carrier is a far cry from its glorious past and the fake license scandal has put a final nail the PIA’s coffin.

The European Union Air Safety Agency (EASA) has suspended the authorisation for the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to operate in the bloc for six months. PIA flights from Birmingham, London Heathrow and Manchester airports are suspended with immediate effect.The United Arab Emirates (UAE) aviation authority is seeking to block PIA flights unless it can verify the credentials of the Pakistani pilots. The UAE needs to verify claims of fake credentials of Pakistani pilots who have been operating PIA flights globally.

The management of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has decided to ground its 150 pilots. Vietnam’s civil aviation authority has grounded all Pakistani pilots flying for Vietnamese airlines, as global aviation regulators respond to revelations by Pakistani authorities last week that more than 250 pilots had been granted licences fraudulently while Malaysia has also barred Pakistani pilots from flying aircraft with immediate effect.

Even the Gulf countries have asked the government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to give them the details of those Pakistani pilots who are flying their planes in different Arab countries. PIA, which was already suffering a financial loss, has now lost its brand value as well courtesy to Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s presser on the Karachi plane crash which occurred in May.

The PIA’s total debt was reported to be 400 billion Pakistani rupees as of June 30, 2019. That number is approaching the 500 billion mark, with the airline currently reporting losses of 6.3 billion rupees per month. Despite managing to reduce operational losses in recent months, the PIA’s longstanding flaws have resurfaced amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit the global airline industry.

In such situation Sarwar Khan’s statements proved to be a suicidal attack on his own ministry as the global community is not only banning the national airline but it is gradually stopping Pakistani pilots from flying planes abroad.

One only needs basic common sense to understand that such announcements should not be made public so callously since they can have catastrophic ramifications on the careers of the pilots working abroad and on the national airline. It is hard to find a single country which after an aeroplane crash declared almost every pilot in the nation guilty of holding dubious credentials.

Sarwar Khan’s attempt to appease Imran Khan by accusing previous governments of hiring pilots with dubious credentials have proven to be costly for Pakistan. In any case, the damage has been done and now for the next six months not only will PIA be unable to operate in the EU and the UK but Paksitani pilots serving anywhere in the world will face enormous pressure and difficulties in their careers.

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