Chairman PIA says 90 pct pilots cooperating with administration

Speaking at a presser, Jafar said that 90 per cent of the pilots have been cooperating with the PIA administration.

He said that Palpa members were invited for talks, but they returned the gesture by laying conditions.

The PIA chairman informed that there were 107 flights scheduled on Tuesday, out of which only two were cancelled; one due to the absence of the pilot and other because of bad weather.

The ongoing contention between Pakistan Airlines Pilots Association and management of Pakistan International Airlines has resulted in cancellation of 88 flights in last five days, thus inflicting loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer.

The deadlock between the two sides is still in place, bringing miseries to the passengers who are being overcharged by other airlines for local flights. The strike has now entered sixth day.

PM’s Adviser Shujaat Azeem is chairing an urgent meeting in Aviation Division to try to resolve the PIA-PALPA dispute.

Following their first meeting with the Aviation Divi­sion on Sunday, representatives of PIA and the Palpa were to meet on Monday to continue the talks, but no breakthrough could be resulted.

The management of national flag carrier has refused to accept conditions put forward by the Palpa, terming them ‘unacceptable’.

According to PIA spo­kesperson, demands mooted by Palpa included the immediate replacement of the Flight Operations direc­tor, the withdrawal of all show cause notices, inquiries, investigations and legal not­ices issued to pilots on disciplinary grounds and the reinstatement of all grounded pilots, in addition to determ­ining pilots’ seniority accor­d­ing to the association’s wishes.