KARACHI: The Civil Aviation Authority defended on Wednesday the decision to outsource its testing and licensing exam system to the United Kingdom saying that the move aimed at rebuilding the global confidence in Pakistani pilots.

“Whatever had happened was unfortunate, but it is not that easy to build international confidence,” CAA director general Khaqan Murtaza told a press conference at the authority’s headquarters here.

Mr Murtaza was referring to last year’s episode when Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan had told the National Assembly that 40 per cent of Pakistani pilots possessed dubious licences. Following his statement, various international bodies, foreign carriers and countries imposed curbs on the country in view of safety concerns.

‘This outsourcing will be for two to three years’

The CAA chief, however, insisted that the outsourcing of commercial/airline transport pilot licence to the UK Civil Aviation Authority was a temporary arrangement.

“We will not disband our licensing system,” he said. “This outsourcing will be for two to three years.”

About the exam process, he said that all exams would be conducted in Pakistan by the UK CAA on the pattern of the O/A Level examination conducted by the British Council on behalf of Cambridge International. “Our kids will not have to go abroad [for exams].

Answering a question about increasing the cost of the exam for the potential candidates, he said that it was proposed that the CAA would provide some subsidy to candidates appearing for the first time in the initial level of testing.

Mr Murtaza conceded that the outsourcing plan had hit a delay because of the involvement of payment of foreign exchange by the CAA to the UK. “There’s a delay because of financial issues and it requires approval from the federal cabinet.”

Against the backdrop of suspension of licence of private carrier Shaheen International Airlines (SAI), Mr Murtaza said that the SAI collected CAA charges from passengers but instead of paying the charges “laundered” the huge sum abroad.

When asked whether a repeat of the SAI-like situation that was allegedly a failure of the CAA’s oversight role was possible, he said that currently no “private airline” was heading towards default.

About Pakistan International Airlines, he downplayed the question and said that PIA was the national carrier and its total losses were the responsibility of the government.

He said that the CAA had introduced a recovery unit that was following and taking action against airlines in case of delay in payment of dues.

Plight of UAE-bound passengers

When his attention was drawn towards the problems being faced by Dubai-bound passengers, he said the UAE government wanted a passenger’s rapid PCR test result, sample for which was taken four hours before the flight departure.

He said that the condition was imposed for only passengers going to the UAE and not on transit passengers. He said that around 90 per cent of the passengers from Karachi airport were going to Dubai as transit passengers, but the situation was worrisome at Peshawar and Islamabad airports where 90pc passengers were going to the UAE.

Mr Murtaza said that the facility was being provided at Sialkot airport, which was a relatively small airport with low flight frequency.

He said that the UAE authorities had communicated a list of labs conducting rapid PCR tests at the airport and the CAA was in the process of facilitating them.

He said that most laboratories did not have required equipment and they informed the CAA that they had placed orders but shipment would take at least 10-11 days.

Tourism promotion

Earlier, briefing reporters on the Tourism Promotion and Regional Integration (TPRI) licence for adventure, medical and religious tourism, a CAA official said that the licensees would also be authorised to conduct helicopter services in addition to the fixed-wing aircraft.

The official said that the CAA had initiated new projects, including expansion of the runway of Skardu airport, feasibility study for extending the Gilgit airport runway for jet aircraft operations or sighting of a new location for Gilgit airport, extension of the runway of Saidu Sharif airport to make it jet-aircraft capable and construction of new Gwadar international airport.

He said that for the promotion of tourism activities, the existing runways of Muzaffarabad and Rawalakot had also been rehabilitated. He stated that the CAA was open to facilitating any investor to help in building new private landing strips and helipads.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2021