Fly Jinnah: Why is PIA angry over Air Arabia being allowed to fly in Pakistan?
A recent letter from Pakistan national airline PIA to P M Imran Khan expressed concern over the permission of a foreign airline to operate flights on domestic routes to country. Declared economically detrimental to the IA.
The Chief Executive Officer of PIA has-informed the Prime Minister that besides the national airline, the airlines operating in the private sector of the country have also expressed concern over this development.
The national airline said the move was tantamount to harming the country's weak aviation industry & would have long-term consequences.
Apart from PIA, which operates in the public sector, three private sector airlines are currently operating flights on domestic routes.
It should be noted that the airline Air Arabia of the United Arab Emirates has been allowed to operate domestic flights in Pakistan with the joint venture of a Pakistani business group called Fly Jinnah.
The move by Pakistan's aviation industry experts, experts & the PIA has been described as a loss to the local aviation industry, but the country's aviation sector regulator, Civil Aviation, has dismissed the concerns. Has gone According to the Civil Aviation Authority, a local business group owns a majority stake in Fly Jinnah.
Pakistan's national airline is currently facing financial difficulties and its financial results for the financial year ended June 30, 2021 show that PIA incurred a loss of Rs 25 billion in one year. Revenue passenger kilometers also declined by more than 22% in the year under review.
What concerns did the PIA express?
The chief executive officer of the state-owned national airline PIA wrote a letter to the prime minister entitled "Protection of the local aviation industry".
According to the letter received by media Urdu, the PIA chief executive told the prime minister that according to reports, the government of Pakistan has allowed a foreign airline to operate domestic flights with the aim of attracting foreign investment in the country. Kari has been told to encourage.
According to him, this move would be disastrous for the country's weak aviation industry. He, however, technically said that the agreement was between a local airline and a foreign airline under which the foreign airline would bring aircraft to Pakistan and start domestic flights.
According to the PIA CEO, this is in a way a violation of the national aviation policy under which Air Arabia was not allowed to operate domestic flights..
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He pointed out that Air Arabia would now be allowed to operate domestic flights in the name of foreign investment by Fly Jinnah.
When the Civil Aviation Authority, the regulator of the aviation sector in Pakistan, was contacted in this regard, the spokesperson of the authority, while giving his position, first rejected the impression that the rights of domestic flights have been given to a foreign airline.
The spokesman said that as far as Fly Jinnah is concerned, a local business group owns the majority stake in it so the airline is a local company.
The spokesman said that the impression that a foreign airline would take over the country's domestic routes was wrong.
He said that the country's civil aviation policy and related laws allow foreign investment to enter the country.
Are foreign airlines allowed to fly on domestic routes?
The letter, written by the PIA's chief executive officer, said such an arrangement does not exist even in countries around the world that have very liberal trade policies, such as the United States.
Talking to people involved in the aviation sector in this regard, they said that this is not the case even in the region where Pakistan is located and it is very rare in the world for a foreign airline to fly to any country. Permission to operate flights on internal routes of
Wing Commander (retd) Naseem Ahmed told BBC Urdu that this is very rare but Turkish Airlines has such permission in the United States. He said that in fact such agreements are mutual agreements between the two parties.
He said that if PIA had any objection then it should knock on the door of the court but he said that it should not be allowed.
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