Following a sporadic flights schedule and continuous flight delays by Pakistan International Airline (PIA), the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)-Pakistan has directed the national flag carrier to ensure feeding complete flights details in the Air Transport Flight Management System (ATFMS); it was learnt here on Saturday.
According to sources, a lack of co-ordination among PIA's different departments had contributed to airline's woes.
Sources said that flight schedule and planning department, which was solely responsible to inform CAA-Pakistan about flight operations, did not do the same prior to PIA flights operated for local and international destinations, which was considered to be a serious security breach and shear violation by PIA.
Sources said that at least seven flights, operated on January 16, 2015, were identified as "Without Permission" by the flight system as the details of these flights were not fed in the online ATFMS system by the airline, due to its intermittent flights schedule.
Moreover, sources said that CAA authority had also asked the PIA management to put the affair of flight schedule and planning in order as what CAA observed that growing tendency of ill planning and negligence of required protocols and procedures in flight operations was a serious issue.
Sources were of the view that if the issue remained extant, it would result in collapse of the airline. Therefore, CAA-Pakistan in order to address the issue gravely asked its Schedule & Network Planning Section (S&NPS) to identify the flights, which were marked as 'Without Permission', by the system.
Replying to a question, sources said that such violations in aviation industry were considered as sheer negligence that may attract a strict action, eg, a ban on international flights by foreign airport authorities.
Recently, the General Authority of Civil Aviation of Saudi Arabia (GACA) has also warned PIA over continuous flight delays and refused allowing the airline to use briefing counters as per schedule, due to passengers' chaos at Hajj Terminal of Jeddah Airport.
Needless to mention, the flights, marked as 'Without Permission' by the system, were PK-248 (Dammam-Lahore), PK-283 (Peshawar-Dubai), PK-284 (Dubai-Peshawar), PK-316 (Karachi-Lahore), PK-342 (Rahim Yar Khan-Lahore), PK-345 (Dera Ghazi Khan-Karachi) and PK-898 (Lahore-Kuala Lumpur).
The origins of the flights were King Fahd International Airport, Peshawar International, Dubai International Airport, Jinnah International Airport, Shaikh Zaid Airport, Dera Ghazi Khan Airport and Alama Iqbal International airport, respectively.
When contacted, spokesman CAA Pervez George said that Director General Air Marshal Muhammad Yousef (retd) directed all concerned staff to pay special attention towards ensuring passengers' satisfaction, which he considered as prime responsibility of CAA-Pakistan.
He confirmed that CAA-Pakistan kept instructing the management of the national flag carrier to put its all operations in order to restore passengers' confidence on the airline.
For the purpose, DG CAA-Pakistan has constituted several monitoring teams, who frequently visit different airports countrywide and make recommendations on flights and other operations.
He said that DG had recently made a surprise visit to Lahore airport where he personally inquired about a passenger's complaint.
Meanwhile, spokesman PIA Hanif Rana denied to have received any notice from CAA, saying that no written instructions related to PIA's flight operations was so far communicated by the CAA-Pakistan.