We won’t fly until ‘tax’ is withdrawn!

Pilots working for the Pakistan International Airline (PIA) have announced unanimously that they would stop flying if the airline’s management continued to implement ‘unfair and unjust’ taxation policy on their salaries.

The country’s national airline has been in the doldrums due to management, administrative and financial issues and this move by the pilots was the latest blow to the already troubled organisation. Like most of its current problems, this particular move was also of PIA management’s own doing.

Pilots have complained that they are charged inflated amount of taxes on their salaries – so much that in most cases their ‘take home’ amount is much less than the tax they have to return to the organisation. The situation is a stark contrast to some of the private airlines of the country. For instance, according to sources, two other national airlines’ pilots only pay Rs 19,000 to Rs 30,000 on their salaries whereas a PIA pilot pays a remarkable average of Rs 200,000 to Rs 350,000 PM tax on a similar salary scale – 10 times more than private airline’s pilots.

One of PIA’s pilot said: “These are our jobs. We don’t work hard to pay back the government only. We have families to run and kids to look after. If more than half of our hard earned salaries, which we earn staying away from home mostly, goes down in tax, what will we take home? How will we run our houses? Enough is enough. We will not fly until the taxation system is made fair and justifiable.”

In response to the situation, Pakistan Air Line Pilots’ Association President, Captain Amir Hashmi said: “I am trying to solve this situation amicably by talking to my colleagues and convincing them to continue flying but the PIA management is not interested in finding a fair solution to this. They have failed to clarify the taxation policy and have created a lot of confusion among the pilots. I can only stop the movement to a certain extent but by the looks of things, it has gone too far now. We need a fair solution to the matter immediately by either returning the over taxed money or charging the same from private airline’s Pilots, so that we do not feel the step brotherly treatment from Govt. And management.”

“To make matters worse, the board of directors have given a go ahead to issue contracts to those pilots who have contacts and are in the good books of high officials against PALPA’S agreement with management.