Responding to concerns regarding bogus pilot licences, Vietnam’s aviation authority on Monday grounded all Pakistani pilots working for local airlines, Dawn reported.
The issue of dubious licenses came to light after Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan in the National Assembly declared that 150 pilots of the national flag carrier, Pakistan International Airlines, had fake licences. This triggered a panic in the aviation sector with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expressing grave concern over the “serious lapse in licensing and safety oversight by the aviation regulator”, last week.
In a statement on Monday, the head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has ordered a suspension for all Pakistani pilots working for Vietnamese airlines. The suspension is not likely to be revoked soon. According to reports, Vietnam had 27 Pakistani pilots, and 12 of them were still active, while the other 15 pilots’ contracts had expired or were inactive due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Pakistani aviation minister said that the airlines and clubs had been conveyed that “their [pilots’] credentials are dubious, and they shouldn’t be allowed to fly”, adding that the names of all the pilots had also been put up on the Civil Aviation Authority’s website, Dawn reported.
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