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| Pakistan's PIA has been barred from operating in the European Union after the state-run carrier grounded nearly a third of its pilots for holding fake or dubious licences (AFP Photo/FAROOQ NAEEM) |
Regulators have barred Pakistan International Airlines from the European Union for six months after the state-run carrier grounded nearly a third of its pilots for holding fake or dubious licences, officials said Tuesday.
The EUAviation
Safety Agency (EASA) told PIA "it is still not sure" if all the
remaining pilots are properly qualified, and "they have lost their
confidence" in the airline, PIA spokesman Abdullah Khan told AFP.
The
suspension is the latest fallout for PIA after Pakistan's aviation minister
told parliament last week that a government review had found 262 of the
country's 860 active pilots hold fake licenses or cheated on exams.
More than
half of them were from PIA, and the airline said it would immediately ground
141 of its 434 pilots.
The EASA
said it had suspended PIA and a smaller private Pakistan airline "in view
of the recent investigation reported on in the Pakistani Parliament which
revealed that a large share of pilot licenses issued in Pakistan are
invalid".
PIA is
filing an appeal, Khan said.
The airline
has only flown limited international flights for months as a result of the
coronavirus. A resumption of domestic operations last month was followed by a
crash blamed on pilot error that killed 98 people.
PIA had
recently resumed bookings for five European capital cities, including Paris,
Milan and Barcelona.
Flights to
Britain, which is no longer in the EU, have also been suspended, Khan said.
The EASA
said it suspended PIA "due to concerns about the capability of competent
authorities to ensure that Pakistani air operators are in compliance with
applicable international standards at all times".
Chaudhry
Manzoor Ahmed, a senior figure in the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, said
PIA's woes had "put the country's reputation at stake".
"The
decision of the European Union is the result of successive follies of
incompetent rulers," Ahmed said in a statement.
Reforms
'inevitable'
Prime
Minister Imran Khan told parliament he would reform PIA and other government
institutions.
"I
want to tell my nation: We have no other option, reforms are inevitable,"
he said Tuesday.
Aviation
minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan has promised that a restructuring of PIA would be
completed by the end of the year.
On May 22,
a PIA flight crashed into houses in Karachi, killing 97 people aboard the plane
and a child on the ground.
Investigators
blamed the pilots, who were chatting about the coronavirus while they first
attempted to land the Airbus A320 without putting its wheels down.
Until the
1970s, Pakistan's largest airline was considered a top regional carrier but its
reputation plummeted amid chronic mismanagement, frequent cancellations and
financial struggles.
PIA, which
is helmed by a serving air force officer, currently has a fleet of 31 planes
and a payroll of about 14,500 workers.
The high
staff-to-plane ratio has seen long-standing accusations the government and the
military use the airline to dish out jobs to cronies and retired military
officers.
Even before
the coronavirus, PIA was in a financial mess, and the EU suspension will only
make things worse.
The airline
racked up $340 million in losses last year, compared to $266 million in 2018.
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