RAWALPINDI: The Aircraft Owners and Operators Association (AOOA) of Pakistan has called the pilots’ licence exam outsourcing a waste of foreign exchange and demanded that the contract with UK’s CAAI be terminated and PCAA’s old examination system be restored.

In a statement issued here on Monday, AOOA general secretary said that since the UK CAAI’s contractual obligations have already ended, this contract may be terminated and the PCAA’s old examination system be restored.

In a letter addressed to the secretary of aviation, the AOOA general secretary retired Wing Commander Nawaz Asim said: “Once again it is brought to your kind notice that International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has confirmed it to this association (AOOA) that PCAA audit and significant safety concerns (SSC) have been addressed and ICAO never told PCAA to outsource its own examination system to a private entity (UK CAAI). The copy of ICAO email is attached.”

The AOOA said the country needed foreign exchange “but we are spending it on an examination system which is not better than our own examination system at PCAA. Before outsourcing the examination system, the stakeholders’ input was never taken care of, which was conveyed to PCAA in Senate sub-committee (Aviation) meetings and through various communications”.

Outsourcing of pilots’ licence exam termed waste of foreign exchange

The AOOA said it had highlighted the fact that it would drastically increase the pilots’ training cost besides being an unnecessary drain of the precious foreign exchange.

“Outsourcing of exam was not a government’s decision; rather the ministry was misled in the wake of the ban on PIA flights to European countries, after an irresponsible statement by the then federal minister on aviation Ghulam Sarwar Awan in one of the parliament’s sessions that 262 pilots had fake licences.

Later, it was established by the court that there had been no fake licences.

The AOOA said that since the UK CAAI contractual obligations have already ended, this contract may be terminated immediately and PCAA examination system be restored.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2024