Pakistani pilots working for local airlines have valid licences: Vietnam

HANOI (Reuters): The Vietnam government has confirmed that all Pakistani pilots working for Vietnamese airlines have valid and legitimate licences and none have been involved in a flight incident or safety threat.

According to a government statement, “All licenses administered by the Pakistani aviation regulator are legitimate and valid. There are no fake licenses, as mentioned by the media.”

Vietnam’s Civil Aviation Authority informed that the country had licensed 27 Pakistani pilots and 12 of them were still active. “The other 15 pilots’ contracts had expired or were inactive due to the coronavirus pandemic,” the authority added.

Last month, Vietnam grounded all Pakistani pilots working for local airlines amid concern from global regulators that some pilots may have been using dubious licences.

The issue of ‘dubious’ licences drew global attention after Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan in June announced that almost 262 airline pilots had not sat their exams themselves and almost 40 percent of the pilots had fake or improper licences. 

In this regard, many countries around the world including Malaysia, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar formally contacted Pakistan to verify if the commercial pilot licences (CPL)/airline transport pilot licences (ATPL) issued by the CAA are genuine.