Fly later

A PIA Boeing-777 passenger aircraft has been impounded at the Kuala Lumpur airport on the orders of a Malaysian court. What more will it take for the federal government to understand that those who are at top positions in the aviation ministry and PIA lack the capacity to handle the affairs of an airline already in crisis? The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issue was also mishandled by everybody involved. Last year, the minister for aviation made an irresponsible statement in the National Assembly that a majority of pilots in the country have fake licenses. Even if that was the case, the CAA, which has the appropriate data, should have given the list of over 800 pilots who were employed by Pakistani and foreign airlines to the minister for aviation. What the motives were behind this statement remains to be investigated. As far as the latest incident is concerned, the higher authorities should have known the repercussions of the non-payment of lease.

Malik Tariq Ali

Lahore