Thousands of passengers globally were left stranded when Pakistan closed its airspace amid soaring tensions with India. AFP
Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan on Thursday said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) suffered a loss of 8.5 billion rupees ($53.12 million) because of airspace restrictions since February in the wake of Indian aggression.
“It’s a huge loss for our overall [aviation] industry,” he said. “But this restriction hit India harder than Pakistan. The loss of India is almost double. But at this juncture detente and harmony are required from both sides.”
.jpg)
Addressing a press conference at the CAA headquarters, the minister said CAA’s restructuring was being executed purely on technical grounds, which would infuse new momentum in the organisation.
“The recent bifurcation of CAA functions into regulatory roles vis-a-vis commercial and service provider is simply to optimise its efficiency and performance. There is no proposal of any downsizing or rightsizing in the CAA after its bifurcation.
We believe that new measures would spur growth in the national aviation and fetch far-reaching benefits,” he added.
Referring to the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, he said it was the government’s priority to revamp the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and increase its fleet to 45 by phasing in 14 new aircraft gradually by 2025.
“Earlier, our domestic airlines did not have space to expand their operations because of open sky policies. Therefore, the open sky policy has now been switched over to fair sky policy which offers equal opportunities to domestic air operators to expand their business,” said Khan.
He acknowledged that under the Aviation Policy 2019, security agencies would be equipped with latest equipment and scanners to meet international standards.
The minister termed the resumption of British Airways flights a success of the Pakistani aviation industry and said that many other international airlines were approaching the government to start their operations in Pakistan.
“There is no plan to shift the headquarters of CAA, PIA or Airport Security Force to Islamabad,” he replied to a question.
He, however, said approximately 60 per cent of activities related to aviation had already been shifted to the northern part of Pakistan and accordingly more manpower may be deployed at Islamabad. DAWN (PAKISTAN)
