KARACHI: The United Kingdom (UK) has refused to lift the ban on Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flights, expressing its safety reservations to the country’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), a private TV channel reported on Sunday while citing reliable sources.
“Sources privy to the development said the Air Safety Unit of the British Department of Transport (DfT) had written a letter to the CAA to convey its concerns over the measures it had taken for flight dependability. The letter was received by CAA on September 8, 2022”, the report added.
In the letter, the DfT has expressed its dissatisfaction over the steps taken by the CAA to ensure flight standards and safety. The DfT is of the opinion that the ban could not be lifted because of the lack of progress despite the settlement of the licensing issues and legislation on aviation in Pakistan, said the report.
In January this year, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) had refused to lift the ban imposed on the PIA to travel to European countries and the UK on the basis of the audit conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
The EASA had suspended the authorisation for Pakistani airlines to operate in Europe first for six months and then indefinitely in the wake of PIA’s PK8303 crashing in Karachi two years ago and the subsequent announcement by then aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan of the grounding of 262 airline pilots suspected of dodging their exams.
