Are overage pilots safe?
SIALKOT:
This is with reference to your coverage of the Airblue plane crash and a front page report on August 6 which said that PIA was planning to rehire pilots who had already retired. On the one hand, PIA pilots get tax-free allowances and on the other hand the management wants to rehire retired pilots older than 60 years but not yet reached 65. Is the CAA aware that countries like France, Hungary and Italy impose restrictions on pilots from flying their country's registered aircraft beyond the age of 60 or 62? The current PPP government gets the cake for defying logic, sacrificing national interest and now the safety of passengers, just because it wants to stand by its cronies.
The national age of retirement is based on the medical health of the population, their access to clean water and unadulterated food, the average life expectancy age and the need to provide jobs to those who are entering the job market for the first time. There is no rocket science involved in training pilots to fly commercial aircraft. What we need is for institutions like PIA to salvage their already-low credibility instead of politicising the matter and making a mockery of the rules and ground realities.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 8th, 2010.
This is with reference to your coverage of the Airblue plane crash and a front page report on August 6 which said that PIA was planning to rehire pilots who had already retired. On the one hand, PIA pilots get tax-free allowances and on the other hand the management wants to rehire retired pilots older than 60 years but not yet reached 65. Is the CAA aware that countries like France, Hungary and Italy impose restrictions on pilots from flying their country's registered aircraft beyond the age of 60 or 62? The current PPP government gets the cake for defying logic, sacrificing national interest and now the safety of passengers, just because it wants to stand by its cronies.
The national age of retirement is based on the medical health of the population, their access to clean water and unadulterated food, the average life expectancy age and the need to provide jobs to those who are entering the job market for the first time. There is no rocket science involved in training pilots to fly commercial aircraft. What we need is for institutions like PIA to salvage their already-low credibility instead of politicising the matter and making a mockery of the rules and ground realities.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 8th, 2010.