In view of a looming inspection from an international aviation organisation, the country’s aviation authority has suspended all domestic operations of Shaheen Air International citing ‘poor flight worthiness’, it has been learnt. Well-placed sources told Pakistan Today that as the inspection of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) starts from the 7th of this month, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has asked Shaheen Air to ground its planes for domestic operations until June 15; resultantly, domestic operations of the private airlines have been suspended. The ICAO had selected Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Shaheen Air International for inspection on its visit this time.
The sources added that the main reason behind the suspension of Shaheen’s domestic operations was the poor worthiness of its planes. They also said that Shaheen Air was currently only operating international flights and that too are being adjusted with other airlines. When contacted, authority’s Airworthiness Department Director Ghulam Murtaza said that any plane with poor maintenance has to be grounded until it is worthy of flying again. CAA spokesperson Pervaiz George expressed ignorance of the authority’s move to suspend Shaheen Air operations but said he could check on it, if this was really the case.
He, however, confirmed that the ICAO’s inspection of the airlines was starting from June 7. Similarly, Shaheen Air spokesman Farooq also denied that the airline’s domestic operations were suspended, claiming everything was running smoothly. Expressing concerns over the poor maintenance of private airlines’ aircraft, the sources feared that it might result in an air crash and placed the blame on the CAA Airworthiness Department for not properly monitoring the maintenance standards of airlines. It is worth noting that Shaheen Air has been conducting its maintenance operations in Indonesia, which has been banned by the European Union for its operators due to substandard practices.
In addition to poor maintenance, most of the airplanes in Shaheen Air’s fleet are old while only five out of 12 planes are operational at the moment. Even the functional aircraft have a very poor maintenance record and might crash in the near future. One of the pilots had even resigned from Shaheen Air International due to the poor maintenance standards at the airline. Also, it has earlier been reported that the ratio of ‘cannibalisation’ of parts (removing a part from one machine to replace a worn out part in another) at private airlines of the country stands at 50 percent against the CAA’s set standard of 10 percent. The sources said that the private airlines have not been adhering to the procedure of ‘test bench’ during cannibalisation, which is a procedure of testing the part before its installation in a plane.
