European Union declines to lift ban on PIA
No action has been taken against former minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan, who falsely accused the pilots of Qaumi Airlines of having fake licenses, for causing heavy damage to Qaumi Airline and defaming the country. The membership of the assembly had to be washed away. The Air Safety Committee of the European Union has upheld the decision to ban on PIA from operating in Europe, declaring that the ban is effective on behalf of the CAA. It was imposed due to weakness in the monitoring system and Pakistan was asked to improve many issues including safety, but due to no progress on this, it has been decided to maintain the ban.
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, Pakistan’s national airline, which is already suffering from heavy losses, is suffering from this decision because, apart from PIA, no other Pakistani Airlines has operations in other Western countries including Europe, and America. It was the only airline that was operating from Pakistan in Europe. The report states that the role of Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was reviewed by the European Union Committee, which looked at security aspects and related issues in air travel, although the European Union committee expressed satisfaction over some measures of CAA, but expressed concern on some aspects, after which it was decided that the decision to ban Pakistani airlines from operating in Europe will remain.
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The European Union’s decision to ban Pakistani airlines was taken on July 1, 2020. Behind the European Union’s decision to ban was the irresponsible statement of the then Federal Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan in the National Assembly. In which he claimed that most of the licenses issued to the pilots by the Civil Aviation Authority are fake, while later the pilots dismissed from PIA on the charge of “fake licenses” were sent to the Gulf and He took jobs in the airlines of European countries.
However, no action was taken against Federal Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan for causing heavy damage to the national airline and defaming the country. In 2013, the Higher Education commission submitted a report to the Supreme Court, according to which Chaudhry Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s degrees were declared fake and on the basis of the Higher Education Commission’s report, he was dismissed as ineligible.
According to the document upholding the ban decision, during the visit to Pakistan in November 2023, the security oversight role and responsibility of the CAA were addressed. CAA has technical and professional staff but there are many defects in the institution such as coercion as opposed to agreement and deficiencies in internal verification procedures.
While the national airline is losing billions of rupees due to the ban of the European Union, the airlines of the Gulf countries and ” friendly ” countries including Turkey are earning millions of dollars from Pakistan. Handing over all operations to airlines is by no means a sound policy as PIA is one of the few legacy airlines in the world that has several global licenses that award-winning Gulf airlines have yet to acquire, hence privatization. The government should also consider the value of these global licenses.
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