- Announcement was not thought through
Perhaps the European Union’s Air Safety Agency’s suspension of PIA’s flight operations was inevitable, once Aviation Minister Ghjulam Sarwar Khan’s announcement to the National Assembly that 262 pilots had obtained their pilots’ licenses improperly. The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority also suspended operations, giving an indication of how other national aviation authorities might be expected to react. The pity of the matter is that Mr. Khan made the announcement as a sort of throwaway, a by-product of the enquiry into the Karachi air disaster. The irony is that, while there are indications of pilot error in the disaster, there is nothing wrong with the licenses of either the pilot or the co-pilot. However, Mr. Khan managed to ensure that attention was diverted from the crash and also his own ministry. However, the result has been disastrous. European regulators have already had PIA brought to their notice for drunken pilots, pilots attempting to sleep instead of flying the plane and cabin crew acting as drug mules. But now they would have to worry about what would happen if a pilot without a proper license tried to land a plane in Europe. And there was a crash. The EASA and the UK CAA took the safe way out.
However, meanwhile, while it leaves PIA scrambling to get its operating permission restored, the really bad news for the government is that PIA privatization has once again been put on hold. With the airline industry already in free fall because of the covid-19 pandemic, this latest disaster makes the airline unlikely to be touched by any investor. A major asset had been the ability to land at major European and English destinations to carry the indigenous traffic. That ability has been compromised, and while the problem can be fixed, only a really desperate government could sell the airline; and that too at a bargain-basement price.
That the matter of pilots’ licenses could not be swept under the carpet is given, but the springing of the surprise can only be explained by the minister’s desire to spare himself embarrassment. The Augean stables must be cleaned, and people made to believe that PIA pilots’ licenses are fine. Domestic passengers matter more perhaps than foreign regulators.
