10 countries sought licence verification of Pakistani pilots, confirms CAA
- By Salah Uddin -
- Jul 16, 2020
KARACHI: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has confirmed that it has received requests from 10 countries to seek verification of licences of Pakistani pilots, ARY News reported on Thursday.
The countries which sought credibility of credentials of Pakistani pilots include United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia, Vietnam and other states.
The states have sought details of 176 pilots who have received licences from the operator in Pakistan.
166 out of 176 licences have been verified so far by the CAA, said the spokesperson, adding that the clearance process was pushed into a delay for 10 more licences on technical grounds. The process will be completed by next week.
Read: None of Pakistani pilots possess dubious ATPL licenses: PALPA
The CAA spokesperson detailed that 262 pilots had been grounded over the directives of the Pakistani government over the issue of suspected licences, whereas, the federal cabinet members had approved the suspension of licences of 28 aviates.
Moreover, the concerned authorities have commenced an action against 76 pilots and also lined up proceedings for the scrutiny of 158 more aviates. The spokesperson added that the aviation minister was personally supervising the matter related the dubious licences.
This development comes after the clearance of 35 out of 39 Pakistani pilots performing duties in Qatar Airways.
CAA sources told ARY News earlier in the day that of the 39 pilot licences, 35 has been verified while the remaining four would take a few days to be re-verified.
Read: CAA verifies licences of 21 pilots working in Oman and Hong Kong Int’l Airlines
On July 15, the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority’s (PCAA) acting director-general, Hassan Nasir Jamy, had highlighted that the institution has already verified 96 Pakistani pilots out of 104 names received from various civil aviation authorities and foreign airlines.
Hassan Nasir Jamy had shared the details with the Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA) – Oman in a letter to respond to their concerns regarding the issue of suspicious licences of the pilots.
The letter also read that some concerns were raised about the validity of some pilots’ licences to ensure maximum safety in air travel and the process of verifying the credentials through forensic scrutiny was initiated by the federal government.