Daily Times

The Pakistan’s airline industry on Friday suffered another major blow as the country’s second biggest airline Shaheen Air International (SAI) officially announced its closure.

On the behalf of Ehsan Sehbai, former CEO Shaheen Air, Director HR Shaheen Air Imran Aziz informed airline’s employees that the airline had been shut down officially due to unavailability of funds. The airline will soon declare itself bankrupt, added Aziz.

He said that Javed Sehbai will have no role from now onwards as he himself will be responsible for all his commitment to entire staff. Also, Ehsan Sehbai and his brother apologized to the entire staff that they could not pay the staff salaries for the last 08 months.

Aziz, further stated in a letter that the ex-CEO has also thanked all staff for their patience and understanding for the difficulties faced by all the employees. “We are sincerely sad that we cannot help anyone further to get out of this mess.”

He advised the employees of the Shaheen Air to consider the airline officially closed and all employees are free to find jobs in the market. It is very clearly stated that none of the Sehbai family are related to the Airline anymore, he added.

Shaheen Air was a private Pakistani airline, owned by the Khalid Shehbai family and originally established by the Shaheen Foundation in 1993. In 2004, the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan (CAA) grounded Shaheen Air as the airline owed it millions of rupees. However, the airline was cleared by the CAA to resume its domestic and international operations on payment of outstanding dues and funds. Again, the airline was declared as a defaulter by CAA and FBR in October 2018. Recently, an unnamed investor from Saudi Arabia was trying to help the airline return to service, but he (Saudi prince) withdrew from a deal to bail out the troubled airline. AerCap Ireland, the lessor of Shaheen Air’s eight aircraft, has taken back its airplanes through the Ireland’s Embassy. Shaheen Air initially had a fleet of about 16 airplanes, which first decreased to half and then completely vanished.

It employed about 4,000 people directly and 1,000 indirectly, creating a wave of unemployment in the aviation industry.

Currently, Pakistan has one state owned and two private airlines, while according to CAA, four new private operators had applied for the (RPT) air licence, including Askari Air Pakistan, Alvir Airways, United Airways Pakistan Limited (Air Pakistan), Liberty Air, Afeef Zara Airways and Air Sial.

Published in Daily Times, February 9^th 2019.