Pakistan’s national flag carrier has achieved perfect safety ratings fromEuropean Air Safety Watchdog, SAFA.
In the past years, this achievement was considered almost unattainable.
SAFA or Safety Assessment for Foreign-Origin Aircraft conducts periodic andsurprise checks for all the non-European Airlines at different airportsacross the world. PIA, being under consistent scrutiny ever since thepilots’ license scandal surfaced, was subjected to extensive audit checksat most of the international airports by SAFA inspectors.
However, with no discrepancies found in the last few weeks, SAFA loweredits safety hazard index for PIA to zero, which is a perfect hazard score.Three years ago, PIA was hovering at a 3.0 safety index, which was criticalfrom safety considerations. With a strong focus on improvement, PIAaveraged at 0.5 for most of 2021. Now, with a safety index of zero, PIA isranked among the best airlines in the world with the safest operatingrecords.
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Chief Executive Officer of PIA, Air Marshal Arshad Malik, thanked his teamfor working tirelessly to achieve the highest ever safety ratings. He saidthat we have totally restructured the Safety Department of PIA, whichundertakes more stringent in-house safety checks on all its internationalflights.
A new safety awareness culture has been introduced in PIA whereby specialemphasis and career incentives are given to people who adhere to theculture. He said that now we have offered our professional support to theregulatory authority in Pakistan as well as aiding them to clear the ICAOAudit in November of this year, paving the way for the resumption offlights to the west.
