Pakistan’s broken airline on its knees after crash, fake pilot scandal and impact of coronavirus

Pakistan International Airlines crew were deemed responsible for deadly crash in Karachi in May, followed by admission many pilots had fake licences

PIA is also the most likely airline in the world to fail in the absence of a bailout as Covid-19 cuts demand for air travel, analysts say

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The series of disasters at PIA has galvanised the government to speed up reform of the industry in Pakistan. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:39am, 8 Jul 2020Updated: 9:42am, 8 Jul 2020

For decades Pakistan International Airlines stood for a resurgent postcolonial nation, flying the flag from New York to Tokyo. Now the airline is struggling to recover from a fatal crash, years of losses, a collapse in global air travel and the stunning revelation that almost a third of the nation’s pilots obtained fake licences.

That latest admission, from Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan, tipped the airline from crisis to full-blown catastrophe. Khan did not say whether the pilots of the crashed Airbus SE jet, who were discussing the coronavirus when they retracted the landing gear just before touching down in Karachi, were among those who held dubious licences. But his announcement came on the same evening that investigators held the cockpit crew responsible for the accident.

Investigations into at least three major crashes in Pakistan in the past decade found the pilots were either at fault or did not follow guidelines. Khan said that 262 of over 850 pilots in Pakistan had fake qualifications and many did not even sit the exams themselves.

“I’m not shocked by this,” said Nasrullah Khan Afridi, President of Pakistan Airlines Cabin Crew Association. “In our culture, unfortunately, there is so much wrongdoing among politicians and others that everyone is looking for a short cut. Everyone with dubious records, including the regulator which issues pilot licences, should be punished.”

The shock is reverberating beyond Pakistan, which is not the only country in Asia to have reported problems in the past over the certification of pilots as a slew of new budget carriers competed to sign up cockpit crews. In the past few years, India and some nations in Southeast Asia have also come under scrutiny for cases of exaggerated flight hours or simulator time.

“This is not just a PIA or Pakistan only issue, it is widespread in India, Indonesia and also the Philippines,” said Mohan Ranganathan, an aviation safety consultant and former pilot based in the southern Indian city of Chennai, recalling that in 2011-12, several hundred pilots working for airlines in India were found to have fake certificates.

“A similar charade takes place from flying schools in Indonesia, Philippines etc. They collect the full fees from trainees but actual flying is done only on paper,” he said.