KARACHI: Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday directed the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to not suspend operations of Shaheen Airline International (SAI) from Monday.
On Friday, CAA had forwarded a letter to SAI, threatening it to suspend its international flights except those to Saudi Arabia.
On Monday, SAI marketing Director Zohaib Hassan confirmed Pakistan Today that SAI had challenged the letter in SHC and the court had suspended the letter.
He said that SAI had challenged the letter while claiming that it was in patent breach of CAA’s own laws, particularly Rule 373 of the Civil Aviation Rules 1994, and had argued that CAA, being a regulator of all the airlines, had been treating SAI discriminately.
“Every month SAI contributes billions of rupees to the national exchequer,” he claimed, adding that CAA never dared to take any action against other local carriers (big defaulters).
“It is targeting SAI over less than 2 per cent of other big carriers’ outstanding balance,” he said.
He also said that SAI had already acted upon its payment plan and the court suspended the letter after SAI produced its substantiation before the court.
