Daily Times

KARACHI: The Pakistan Air Lines Pilots Association (PALPA) on Saturday announced its withdrawal from the strike against government’s proposed plan to privatise the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), with the organisation head directing pilots to resume their duties. The Joint Action Committee of the PIA, however, rejected the PALPA demand to resume flight operations and vowed to continue strike until their demands are met. “At least 410 out of 430 pilots in PALPA are in favour of resumption of flight operations,” said PALPA President Amir Hashmi. He said PIA pilots are ready to provide their services but they should be provided adequate security as “we are receiving threats from the protesters”. Hashmi said PALPA was part of the protest from the beginning but never supported the idea of complete strike “which can have serious consequences on an airline which is already sinking”. “Pilots are part of a professional body … we are not a political party,” he said, adding that the PIA strike had turned into a political arena. Hashmi said PALPA stopped flight operations only when ‘water cannons, baton charge and marches became part of the protest’. “It was not possible to continue flight operations at a time when the situation was so charged.” He said the association has written a letter to the director general flight operations with commitment to resume flights on the condition that pilots are provided adequate security. However, the JAC spokesman said that the flights operations would not be resumed until demands of the protesting PIA workers are not met. He said that the committee would announce future course of action after holding final round of talks with the government. He said that the protesting employees are united and that every effort to create divisions among them would ultimately fail. He said all those PIA employees who were proposing resumption of flight operations should remember the killings of their protesting colleagues. PIA’s flight operations remain suspended on Saturday, when the country-wide strike entered its fifth consecutive day, with the national flag carrier incurring an estimated loss of over Rs2 billion since the announcement of strike. A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against ‘unknown people’ in the case pertaining to the deaths of PIA employees during the first day of protest, confirmed SSP East Rao Anwar. The National Assembly on January 21 witnessed the passage of six bills, including one to convert the national flag carrier into a public limited company. Under the bill, PIAC is to be converted into a public limited company as Pakistan International Airlines Company Limited (PIACL). The government plans to split the ailing national flag carrier PIA into two companies and sell the control of its core business to a global airline.