Aviation minister says Pakistan has removed all EU concerns regarding PIA

Federal Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan says that they have removed all concerns of the European Union regarding Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).

Talking to media persons, the minister said that PIA was adding eight new aircraft to its fleet.

It is pertinent to mention that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency's (EASA's) had suspended the authorization for the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to operate in the European Union (EU) member countries for six months in July 2020.

The European Commission has decided to retain the ban on the PIA operations in its member countries and asked the country's aviation authorities to remove safety deficiencies and improve the whole process of issuing licenses to commercial pilots.

The EASA said it would conduct an audit of the third country operator when it would consider the lifting of a suspension of the PIA operations when the conditions were met.

However, the conditions had not been met yet. The EASA said in its letter to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), in particular, the investigation conducted by the European Commission on the issuance of professional licenses was still ongoing, which indicated that there was a possibility the audit would not have the expected positive results.