ISLAMABAD – National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence Wednesday directed the Ministry of Defence to bar the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) from selling any profitable routes to other airlines, calling it detrimental to the business of the national airlines.
The committee chairperson, Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, chaired the meeting. Taking notice of a news report that PIA had agreed to sell to Turkish Air Lines all the existing routes to Europe and America except London, Oslo, Copenhagen and Paris, the standing committee asked the Ministry of Defence to take the notice of the issue and bar the PIA from selling profitable routes to other airlines as it would destroy the business of the national airlines.
The defence secretary told the committee that the ministry had already taken the notice of the issue and gone through record of the meeting between the officials of the PIA and the Turkish Airlines. He added that as per the PIA record, it was only a meeting and there was no formal agreement between the two airlines. The secretary, however, admitted that the meeting record contained a clause in which the PIA was willing to surrender its certain routes. The PIA could not enter into such agreements without the approval of the ministry and if had done so, they had no legal validity because only the Ministry of Defence was authorised to sign such agreements.
Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho directed the ministry to issue a press note, clarifying that no such agreement had been signed between the PIA and the Turkish Airlines. She further directed the ministry to bar the PIA from discussing the sale of profitable routes in future.
Meanwhile, the standing committee also incorporated recommendations in the Air Carriage Bill 2010. According to the recommendations, compensation amount in case of death in air traffic accidents, the victims would be paid Rs 100, 000 each and in case of luggage lost owing to the negligence of the PIA, the airlines would pay as per Rs 1,000 per kilogram.
Sardar Mahtab Khan MNA, a member of the committee, asked the chairperson to direct the PIA general manger to submit statements of annual performance for the last six years.
