KARACHI / LAHORE: The Supreme Court on Friday directed Shaheen Air International (SAI) to retrieve by Monday all the Pakistani passengers stra­nded in the Chinese city of Guangzhou due to suspension of the airline’s flight operation by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

In a lingering dispute on payment of arrears, the CAA, it is learnt reliably, did not allow the airline to fly its aircraft to China on Friday on “technical grounds”, throwing passengers into an uncertain situation.

Responding to Dawn queries, CAA spokesperson Pervez George said that the aircraft that SAI wanted to fly to Guangzhou was, on inspection be CAA staffers, declared “non-airworthy”.

SAI representative Zoheb Hassan confirmed that “CAA has stopped SAI flight bearing number NL 892 from departing to Guan­gzhou, China on technical grounds”.

No respite for passengers stranded at Chinese city

“The flight was supposed to fly from Lahore to Guangzhou on Friday,” he said.

The CAA raised the technical issue on last minute which would cause severe inconvenience to the passengers and exposed the CAA’s intentions against the SAI, he said.

“We are in contact with chartered carrier companies and SAI will bear the expenses to bring the passengers back,” he added.

He said initially there were around 300 passengers and around 260 of them had been paid refund for their tickets and they had left for their destinations.

He said currently around 46 passengers, all adult males, were in China. They were being kept at a hotel and provided food, and in some cases, clothes also.

The passengers were booked on a SAI flight on July 29, but as the CAA had suspended the SAI flights because of the dispute relating to nonpayment of dues of over Rs1.5 billion the scheduled flight was cancelled and around 300 passengers booked on it were stranded at the Chinese airport.

In Lahore, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar summoned SAI chief executive officer Ahsaan Sehbai on next hearing.

During the hearing at the Lahore registry, Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua told the court that 254 of 300 passengers had been brought back to Pakistan. She said no Pakistani passenger was arrested in China.

The airline’s regional director, M.A. Saqlain, said the CAA had suspended their flight operations other than to Saudi Arabia for Hajj. He said the airline had refunded most of the tickets.

SAI legal adviser Abraiz Ali Khan said a requisition had been floated for hiring an international chartered plane to get back the passengers. He said the issue would be resolved in three to four days.

The chief justice ordered the airline to ensure that all passengers were retrieved from China by Monday.

The bench would resume hearing on Aug 16 at the Islamabad seat.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2018