The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has advertised job vacancies for cadet pilots despite the fact that the financially-troubled national carrier already has a surplus number of cadet pilots.
This move is believed to be made so that PIA Managing Director Captain Nadeem Yousufzai can hire his son Shan Ali Khan as a cadet pilot. Khan is currently getting trained at Schon Air – a Dubai-based private airline having six to seven planes owned by Khalid Kashmiri, a former operator of the Air Force.
Khan is in the phase of completing 200-hour training at Schon Air, and after that, he would acquire a commercial pilot licence, which is a mandatory requirement for cadet pilots to be hired by airlines.
It has been learnt that the airlines already has 80 cadet pilots, who are waiting for their turn to fly ATR 45 or ATR 72 planes (twin-pilot operations) on primary routes and are paid a stipend of Rs 10,000 every month.
The stipend is paid to those cadet pilots who fill a bond with the airline after their selection and after completing their simulation, they move to fly Airbus 310.
The regular pilots of the airlines also expressed concern over the hiring of cadet pilots, especially when the PIA administration has not even managed to complete the training of the already hired cadet pilots.
However, the PIA spokesperson denied having surplus number of cadet pilots.
Similarly, the PIA has also placed an advertisement for hiring a retired lieutenant colonel for the post of the security general manager even though it has three retired lieutenant colonels working for it – two of them working as security deputy general managers.
Sources said that one security general manager, a lieutenant colonel, has been put in the surplus pool by the PIA. He is being paid for doing almost nothing and one lieutenant colonel is working as the special assistant to managing director.
The advertisement for hiring cadet pilots was published on April 5 and one for the post of the security general manager on March 17.
PIA’s cadet pilot vacancies a ploy to sneak in MD’s son?
