The age requirement for the positions of 12 flight inspectors advertised recently by Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is a violation of rules and Supreme Court judgements. "The advertisement published recently mentions the age requirement of 63 years for the position, which is completely against the judgement of Supreme Court and Federal Government ESTA Code," said Captain Amir Hashmi, President Palpa.
Captain Amir Hashmi said, "Such induction was without the approval of Prime Minister, therefore it is illegal. The experience requirements have been designed to ensure that only over 60 years of age pilots will become eligible. The previous two logical advertisements to fill in the positions of Director Flight Standards and Flight Inspectors have been scrapped by the authority despite that the induction process has been completed.' There are more than 200,000 pilots flying in airline industries and not even 1 percent hold the degrees of B.Sc, since airline Pilots' job comes under professional category like doctors and engineers as their basic academic degree is F.Sc, but in most of the countries ATPL (airline transport pilots license) is equivalent to masters, but in this particular advertisement, the requirement is intentionally made B.Sc so that No Civilian Pilot should qualify to apply for this particular job which is against the international airline industry practice and it also raises the eyebrows as if it is tailor made for few blue-eyed candidates what remains the misfortune of our country in general and CAA in particular where the word CIVIL is totally ignored.
He added that airlines, pilots, and operational affairs will continue to suffer due to the inability of high officials at the helm of affairs of CAA, unless the government intervenes to set things right. "Secretary Aviation and Special Advisor to Prime Minister on Aviation have no prior aviation experience to run the airline or regulatory authorities, nevertheless if Government wishes him to remain on such an important position then he should at least have staff with experience of commercial aviation, so that we see some light at the end of the tunnel," said the President. Flight Standards Directorate of CAA is a very important Directorate which is tasked with continuous monitoring of airlines to make sure that safety standards are not breached by any airline and the safety of passengers is not compromised.
"This Directorate is also responsible for granting permissions to airlines to operate, check the standards of pilots and cabin crew for safety check standards of ground instructors. In short, safety of airline operations depends on this Directorate but for the last 15 years no permanent Director has been appointed for a considerable time to head this department," he added.
It is considered least important and the heads change very frequently causing uncertainty and lack of a long-term consistent policy and accountability for slackness, he said, adding that the department is mostly run by persons appointed on ad-hoc basis and to avoid any legality are given either acting or officiating charge of the position. "It is being attempted for years to appoint an air force officer but they do not qualify because they have no commercial aviation or airline experience or knowledge of civil flying," reasoned the President.
"The government seriously needs to consider the neglected safety standards in civil aviation sector before it's too late and some accident happens because of this nepotism," he added. Captain Aamir said that when CAA was downgraded by international agency, Captain Najmulhuda was brought in on deputation from PIA in 1999. He remained Director till 2003 and managed to elevate the safety standards to a level that CAA regained its lost grading. He brought the department to international standards. But since then it has been the same sad story.
"Captain Zakir appointed as Acting Chief in 2003 for less than one year; Captain Shafqat remained Acting Director for three years; Captain Atyab for less than two years; Captain Javed for six months; Captain Abid Hassan for one year; Captain Arif Majeed remained a Director only for less than two weeks and then retired at the age of 60. Now Captain Zafar Mahmood has been appointed as Officiating Director Flight Standards," he added.
Most of the Flight Inspectors are above 62 years of age and retired airline pilots who have been given the responsibility of checking airline pilots whereas they themselves have not flown any airplane for several years, said the President "Since the head of Human Resources department in CAA himself is an Engineer and appointed wrongly to head HR of which he has no education or experience, therefore, he keeps quiet about these illegal appointments and raises no objection and does only what he is asked to do by his bosses," he added.-PR
Comments
Comments are closed.