International news organisation Reuters reported that Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) released a press statement on Monday saying that the head of CAAV had ordered a suspension for all Pakistani pilots working for Vietnamese airlines.
“The suspension will be in effect until further notice from CAAV. The authority is coordinating with Pakistani authorities to review the pilots’ profiles,” the notification read.
The news outlet reported that Vietnam had licensed 27 Pakistani pilots, and 12 of them were still active, while the other 15 pilots’ contracts had expired or were inactive due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the CAAV. In a statement, Vietnamese airline VietJet said that it had stopped assigning work to its Pakistani pilots as soon as news of the licence issue emerged.
Earlier Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had said that 262 airline pilots would be grounded whose credentials may have been falsified, following the global airlines body IATA’s statement that the irregularities found in pilot licences at Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) represent a ‘serious lapse’ in safety controls.