KARACHI: President Pakistan Airline Pilots Association (PALPA) Capt Amir Hashmi on Thursday said the managements of Pakistan International Airline (PIA) and Aviation Division have failed to honour their commitments made in the meeting of Senate Standing Committee to resolve the issue regarding PALPA and submission of progress report by secretary Aviation Division.
‘The management of the airline was supposed to inform the senate committee the legal position of director flight operations working on LPR within five days while it also had to clarify that whether pilots’ licenses have been suspended before on flying above prescribed flight duty time or not,’ he told Jasarat Website.
The president said high-ups of the airline had camouflaged the media as well as the senate committee and deliberately had been giving the impression that management had sorted out all the issues and only PALPA was creating the hurdles.
Hashmi said the fact that PIA chairman and the advisor to prime minister on aviation were both absent in the very critical meeting had shown the kind of commitment and respect for upper house and seriousness to resolve the issues.
However, it was on the record that PALPA had unconditionally withdrawn emails sent to IFALPA, a move that was appreciated by the committee as a will to resolve the issue.
‘The aviation division and management of the airline have not been able to move further and despite commitment at a very high level did not implement any of the point agreed upon by secretary aviation on behalf of PIA,’ he said.
He said it was evident from the minutes of the meeting that during the meeting the Secretary Aviation Division informed the committee that PIA’s only demand was concerning the withdrawal of two emails to the International Federation of Airlines Pilot Association (IFALPA) in which a derogatory language was used against the CAA which could have serious repercussions.
He added that CAA is a regulating body and pilots can not dictate terms to their regulator nor use any derogatory language. As such, the Secretary requested the Chairman of the Committee to direct PALPA for immediate withdrawal of emails with a written apology from PALPA.
The chairman of the committee Senator Muhammad Talha Mehmood inquired from the President PALPA Amir Hashmi about the emails sent to the IFALPA. The President informed the Committee that the emails if containing inappropriate and derogatory language used by one of the pilots in the emails have already been withdrawn. He also explained the reasons which lead the PALPA to write such emails to their International Body.
