Supreme Court of Pakistan on Friday banned fresh appointments in Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) until the court decides the fate of a case on illegalities and irregularities in the national airline.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice (CJ) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Jawad S Khawaja heard the case.
The CJ observed that as per reports, the financial health of PIA was deteriorating because approximately 450 staffers had been deployed on a single aircraft as compared to around 150 in other airlines.
Keeping in view this excessive recruitment, the court banned any new appointments in the organisation.
Meanwhile, counsel for PIA Raja Basheer Ahmad handed over a booklet to the CJ containing material reflecting the poor financial conditions of the airline.
According to the booklet, in 2012, the PIA sustained losses of Rs 22.43 billion against Rs 19.29 billion in the previous year proving that losses were swelling every year.
During the proceeding, the CJ inquired about the number of employees working on a regular basis and those working on a contractual basis and asked the concerned authorities to present records on these statistics.
Moreover, PML-N leader Marvi Memon said the PIA authorities should be asked why their flights got delayed routinely and requested the court to direct PIA to reform its structure without further delay.
The CJ expressed his surprise on finding out that the airline had no concrete plans to replace old aircrafts with new ones.
To this, PIA Chief Engineer informed the court that they were getting eight aircrafts on lease under a new policy which he expressed would help improve the situation.
The court summoned PIA chairman and Civil Aviation Authority director general (DG) to appear in person in the next hearing to give specifics on how they planned to resolve the organisation’s problems.
The court also ordered the management to devise a strategy to ensure that flights do not get delayed so that inconvenience to passengers is avoided, who should be properly informed and managed if a flight gets delayed owing to any valid reason.
Later, the court adjourned the hearing for two weeks.
Jobs were sold to highest bidder by former MD Aijaz Haroon and his DA Hanif Pathan. More than 200 pilots have been recruited who are waiting now for past 2 years awaiting to be trained and absorbed, because there are already sufficient number of pilots for 42 aircrafts, when there are hardly only 35 serviceable. Yet retired pilots have been taken on contract.
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