Palpa calls off strike

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Airline Pilots Association (PALPA) on Friday announced calling off their strike, putting an end to the sufferings of passengers due to disturbance of flight schedule in the last nine days.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Senate’s standing committee, which met here with Senator Talha Mehmood in the chair.
Announcing the decision, PALPA also offered an apology to the nation for the sufferings of the airline passengers, as most of the demands put forth by the association remained unaddressed.
Earlier, at the start of the meeting, the entire committee staged a walkout to protest against the absence of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Chairman Nasser Jaffer and his representatives from the meeting. The walkout was also joined by the PALPA office-bearers.
An agreement which was supposed to be signed between PIA and PALPA could not be inked, but some decisions were taken in principle.
The government has termed the end of the strike as its victory observing that it did not bow to the pressure of PALPA.
PALPA also withdrew its demand for replacement of the Director of Flight Operations (DFO), who is to complete his term in office in December and settled on the assurance of the PIA chairman made during the recent rounds of meetings to help bridge the trust deficit.
PALPA office-bearers pointed out that the DFO was on leave prior to retirement since March, and under the law cannot work in office for more than three months now.
The committee sought a report from the Aviation Division on the legal status of the DFO and observed that he should be sent home if he was working in violation of the relevant laws.
The meeting was informed that the only demand of PIA was withdrawal of the two damaging emails sent by one of the pilots, Captain Omer Nazir, to the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations (IFALPA).
According to Secretary of Aviation Division, Muhammad Ali Gardezi, the emails could have serious repercussions.
PALPA office-bearers said that the emails had already been retracted and submitted a written apology to the director general of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), stating that the choice of the words was inaccurate and inappropriate.
In one of the emails, PALPA had alleged that unrest amongst the pilots had been engineered by the government to pave way for selling off the national flag-carrier to the Middle Eastern airlines. The email had also sought IFALPA’s assistance in highlighting these “gross violations” in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
Senator Talha Mehmood, who in the previous meeting had warned against invoking of the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (PPO) or any other anti-terror law against the pilots, shared a letter written to him by the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Aviation, Shujaat Azim, inviting his attention to his remarks about the use of the PPO and asking if the damaging email does not fall in its purview.
He said he had sent the letter to the Law Ministry for legal opinion and has been told that it cannot be used in the case.
He directed the relevant authorities that the written apology of PALPA cannot be used for any other purpose.
It was also decided that an appeal will be filed against the suspension of licenses of two pilots and a decision will be made within 15 days after filing of the appeal with the Aviation Division.
The Senate panel summoned details of such violations by others who had not been awarded any punishment.
The committee directed to resolve the matter pertaining to issuance of a show-cause notice to Captain Sohail Baloch for making a statement against obtaining planes on wet lease within a week.
At least three demands of PALPA were found to be out of the jurisdiction of PIA. These also included waiver of the federal excise duty on tickets for pilots. It was decided that the matter will be taken up by the Senate’s finance committee.