Khuwaja Saad Rafiq, Federal minister for aviation, while in a talk with the media expressed confidence that Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will resume its operation in Europe within six months. Without directly referring to his predecessor Ghulam Sarwar Khan, blamed him for the loss of billion of rupees saying that a huge amount has been lost due to his “stupidity”.
He further talked about the struggle of his government to come out of this “trauma” by working day and night to make up for the loss. He showed optimism that PIA would be able to restore its flights to Europe within 6 months.
He further said about the pilot’s degree scandal that fake degree holders cannot be given the death penalty and that not all of them were fake degree holders. ” There will be few (people) with fake degrees, you can not beat them all with same stick”, he added.
The aviation minister said that unfortunately, PIA has touched the lowest level of decline, but the government has a good strategy to bring the organization to it’s best form. He also talked about the economy of the country by saying that Pakistan’s economy is going through some challenges and everyone has to play his part.
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He stated that all foreign postings and promotions are entirely attributed to the organization. Ministers and chief executive officers have nothing to do with it as all the recruitments were made by the state airline with each preceding government. He revealed that three more aircraft were to be added to the flag carrier fleet on lease.
It is to be mentioned that the Turkish airline was taking passengers from Pakistan to Europe. The minister requested the pilots who were leaving the organization due to taxes, to stay as he would request the finance minister to ease the taxes for pilots.
It is noteworthy that, PIA operation in Europe was suspended in July 2020 due to safety concerns after the pilot license scandals and the crash of PIA PK8303 in Karachi.
