ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Air Lines Pilots Association (Palpa) on Wednesday announced a two-day suspension of its strike against the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) administration.

Palpa Chairman Amir Hashmi announced this decision after a attending meeting called by Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat attended by PIA and all other relevant departments.

After a brief round of talks, Palpa announced to end the strike for two days while secretary aviation was tasked with resolving all the outstanding issues between Palpa and PIA. The committee will again meet with both the parties on Friday.

The chairman of committee Senator Talha Mehmood said "he called the meeting after taking notice of the Palpa strike which had crippled the national carrier and added that the issues are not of the nature which cannot be resolved".

Hashmi, while announcing to call off the strike for two days, hoped that the issues will be resolved within the period.

PIA Chairman Nasser Jaffer also expressed satisfaction over the development in his brief talk with media after the meeting.

Related: PIA schedule goes haywire as several pilots ‘fall sick’

A large number of passengers have faced hardship since the past one week as a number of scheduled PIA flights were cancelled and many others were delayed after some pilots called in sick.

PIA blamed the pilots’ association for cancellation and delay of flights and alleged that the association was “blackmailing” the management in an effort to make personal gains.

After talks between Palpa and the national flag carrier failed to reach an outcome yesterday, Jaffer had formulated a ‘plan B’ to run the flight operations without interruption, under which new pilots were to be inducted on contract basis while Pakistan Navy’s aviators were also called in for assistance.

Palpa president while explaining his position told Dawn Newspaper that Palpa's actions cannot be termed a “strike”, rather, the pilots had opted to “go by the book”.

He had claimed that neither PIA management, nor PM’s Adviser on Aviation Shujaat Azeem seemed interested in resolving this issue.

Related: 95 per cent of flight operation unhindered by pilot strike: PIA

On the other hand, PIA Spokesperson Amir Memon told the newspaper that Palpa was offered a solution, whereby a team consisting of four senior PIA pilots and four Palpa representatives may be constituted, along with two observers from the PIA management.

This team would formulate a future course of action to resolve all the issues between the PIA management and Palpa.

Unfortunately, he said that Palpa had refused to budge and had instead insisted on their demands being met forthwith.

This inflexibility was inconveniencing passengers and inflicting unnecessary financial and losses on the national carrier, he claimed.