Airline Ratings, the best aviation safety, and product rating website in the world, downgraded the ranking of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to a 1-star airline after it was revealed that a large chunk of its pilots held fake licenses.
Editor-in-Chief Airline Ratings, Geoffrey Thomas, has said:
Clearly, there needs to be an investigation into possible bribery and falsifying related to the pilot licenses. This is deeply disturbing as the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) audit and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) country audit should pick this up.
Last month, the National Assembly ‘s Aviation Minister, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, presenting PIA’s PK-8303 crash investigation report, had disclosed that 150 out of 434 PIA pilots have fake licenses. PIA, based on the preliminary report, terminated all 150 pilots immediately.
Following the startling announcement, the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority has demanded that Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority check the licenses of all Pakistani pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, and flight operations officers working on various Gulf state airlines.
The European Union Air Safety Agency (EASA) has suspended the authorization for Pakistan International Airline (PIA) to operate in member countries of the European Union for the next six months. The ban is valid as of today, June 3.
Following in the footsteps of the European Union Air Safety Agency (EASA), the Civil Aviation Authority ( CAA) of the United Kingdom has revoked PIA’s operating license.
In addition, the International Air Transport Association ( IATA), a trade group of 290 international airlines, had called PIA ‘s inability to review pilot licenses before recruiting them as a significant breach in the national flag carrier’s safety protocols.