Six Pakistan International Airlines officials in Dubai sacked

LAHORE: Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has terminated services of six employees working in the Dubai office without any prior notice without any significant severance package.

Services of six employees working for PIA in the Dubai office were terminated without any prior notice. The employees included five permanent employees - Secretary to Station Manager Dubai Sanday Pecho, Traffic Assistant Saeed Gul, Traffic Assistant Altaf Ahmed, Traffic Assistant Ahmed Saeed and Guard Omrani. A contract employee working as the Protocol Officer Paiman Ali was also fired.

On September 19, these employees received their termination letters stating “Due to financial situation and considerable reduction in the corporation business, the corporation has decided to dispense with your services with immediate effect”.

According to sources, it was strange that only Dubai had been right-sized right away, despite its flight operation and political significance, while not a single employee had been fired from Abu Dhabi.

On the other hand, sources said, PIA was sending a deputy station manager from Karachi to the Dubai Office, the amount for whose visa fee and documents vetting would take close to AED 8000, which equals the salary of two of the fired employees.

When contacted, PIA General Manager Public Relation Mashhood Tajwer said that according to Dubai laws, the age of super-attenuation is 60 and Secretary to Station Manager Dubai Sanday Pecho was over that age and was on an extension contract, therefore there was no legal need to remove him through a golden handshake as either one-month notice or one-month salary is needed for termination orders.

Regarding other permanent employees, vis-à-vis Traffic Assistants who had not reached super-attenuation, Tajwar did not mention as to why they were not offered a golden handshake and only said all legal obligation were fulfilled before termination of these employees’ services.

He said that PIA’s Dubai flight operations had been cut to 25, half its former traffic of 50 flights which necessitated this action. He did not comment on the fairness of the downsizing policy.

Responding to the accusation of the terminated employees that they were being victimized for political reasons, he said that these employees were considered to have been close to a figure in the previous government and some of them slacked off their duties for the same reason also. 

Original article:  http://www.thenews.com.pk