Vietnam says all Pakistani pilots have valid, legitimate licences

HANOI: All Pakistani pilots working for Vietnamese airlines have valid and legitimate licences and none have been involved in a flight incident or safety threat, the government said on Saturday.

Vietnam last month grounded all Pakistani pilots working for local airline amid concern from global regulators that some pilots may have been using dubious licences.

“All licenses administered by the Pakistani aviation regulator are legitimate and valid. There are no fake licenses, as mentioned by the media,” a government statement said, citing a note from the Pakistani Embassy to the Vietnamese government.

Vietnam had licensed 27 Pakistani pilots and 12 of them were still active. The other 15 pilots’ contracts had expired or were inactive due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Vietnam’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Earlier on July 15, the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority’s (PCAA) acting director-general, Hassan Nasir Jamy, had highlighted that the institution had already verified 96 Pakistani pilots out of 104 names received from various civil aviation authorities and foreign airlines.

The PCAA acting director and aviation secretary, Hassan Nasir Jamy, had sent a letter to Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA) – Oman in order respond their concerns regarding the issue of suspicious licences of the pilots.