Transport Canada team to reach Pakistan
PHOTO: FILE
A team of Transport Canada -- a government department based in Ottawa responsible for developing regulations, policies and services of road, rail, marine and air transportation in its country – will visit Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport from December 4.
According to a statement issued by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the two-member Canadian delegation is arriving for a security audit and assessment of the Karachi airport.
The purpose of the team’s visit is to review the security of the Pakistan International Airlines’ (PIA) direct flights to Canada.
The CAA said it would facilitate the Transport Canada team in every way possible during its visit.
The Transport Canada delegation will review flight operations, baggage control, cargo handling, access control, perimeter security, and record procedures at the airport.
It will also look into the CAA, PIA, Airport Security Force (ASF), cargo complex and flight kitchen procedures.
In 2021, the Canadian Transport Authority declared that the PIA’s operational services met international standards. It hoped that the airline would maintain the efficiency of its flight operations.
The authority had conducted an audit of the PIA in August 2020 after the European Union imposed a ban on the state-run airline.
The Transport Canada Safety Validation and Airworthiness Desk of the Canadian Transport Authority released the audit report on the PIA’s safety in 2021.
“Transport Canada accepts that [the] PIA has implemented the corrective actions to address the findings generated by the Transport Canada Foreign Operations Division Airworthiness Audit Specific ICAO Airworthiness Elements on August 26, 2020,” Transport Canada wrote in a letter to the then PIA CEO Air Marshal Arshad Malik.
“Accordingly, all of the airworthiness findings are closed. We also recognise that other long-term systematic changes have been implemented both in flight and airworthiness operations over the past years to enhance safety in [the] PIA,” it added.
“Transport Canada will continue to carry out surveillance and oversight activities of PIA operations in Canada which will allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of the long-term corrective action plan,” the letter continued.
The PIA landed in hot water in the wake of its flight PK-8303 crashing in Karachi on May 22, 2020, and the subsequent announcement by the then aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan of the grounding of 262 airline pilots suspected of dodging their exams.
The then aviation minister claimed in parliament that 150 pilots working for the PIA had “dubious licences”.
On learning about the fake licences of the PIA pilots, the European Union Air Safety Agency (EASA) suspended the PIA’s license for flights to the destinations falling under its jurisdiction in July, 2020.
In December 2022, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Aviation held the former aviation minister responsible for the financial woes of the national flag carrier and the ban by several countries, including the US and UK.
The previous coalition government introduced laws and ordinances in an attempt to ensure effective service provision to improve the standards of the country’s aviation sector to meet the international standards for the resumption of the PIA flights to the US, UK, and Europe.
In June this year, the then premier Shehbaz Sharif formed a committee to prepare a plan to restructure and revive the PIA.
The Senate Standing Committee on Aviation later approved the Pakistan Civil Aviation Bill, 2023, and Pakistan Air Safety Investigation Bill, 2023 after some amendments.