Pilots and airline staff suspended for fake degrees

Pakistan authorities have suspended 16 pilots and 65 crew members of the national airline and other airlines in the country for possessing fake degrees, the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority informed the Supreme Court of Pakistan this week on the last day of hearings in a fake degrees case that started in January 2018 and is thought to be one of the largest global fake degree rackets unearthed.

As part of the Pakistan Supreme Court hearings into the massive fake degrees case involving Axact and its CEO Shoaib Shaikh, the apex court took notice of fake degree holders in the national and other privately-run airlines that same month and sought a report from the relevant authorities.

The case lingered on for almost a year as verification of the academic testimonials of airline staff faced many obstacles, including non-cooperation by the airline staff, court stay orders pursued by those affected and the slow pace of universities in verifying the authenticity of academic credentials.

The verification process was completed on 29 December last year and this year, on 9 January, the court case was closed by the Supreme Court after the Civil Aviation Authority and the management of the state-owned airline Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) confirmed to the court they would suspend employees whose degrees were found to be fake or forged.

Right of appeal

In its 9 January verdict, however, the court headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar granted the right of appeal to those facing suspension. If they cannot prove the authenticity of their degrees during the appeal process, they would be dismissed from service.

While the chief justice remarked that fake degree holders do not deserve any compassion, the Pakistan Senate’s Standing Committee on Aviation had earlier opposed sacking of employees holding fake degrees.

Senator Mushahid Ullah Khan, chairman of the Senate Committee, on 29 December strongly opposed the sacking of pilots and cabin crew. "No one should be rendered unemployed for having a fake degree … (as) those deprived of their jobs would lose their livelihood. Why is action not being taken against those who hired them," the Express Tribune newspaper reported him saying.

The senator was quoted as suggesting the salaries of the culprits be reduced instead of firing them.

The airline staff suspended for having fake academic degrees had been in service for many years. However, the issue of who is responsible has become politicised, with Fawad Chaudhry, federal minister for information and broadcasting, alleging during the 26 September session of the National Assembly last year that the previous governments of Pakistan Muslim League and Pakistan People’s Party had “ruined PIA” by recruiting their own people in the national airline.

It is believed that in those previous hiring sprees many pilots and cabin crew with fake academic degrees managed to obtain jobs in the airline through political connections.

Captain Saeed Khan, a member of the Pakistan Airline Pilots’ Association, told University World News: "If a person is recruited on the basis of a genuine academic certificate and after [obtaining] the job, he or she manages to get a tainted higher education degree for promotion, they should be punished by reversing the promotion but should not be fired from the job for which they possess the required basic valid certification."

But Muhammad Murtaza Noor, an independent columnist, told University World News: “There should not be any mercy for the criminals. Flying an airplane with hundreds of passengers onboard is not something trivial that may be left to fake degree holders. The action against them should not only involve sacking them but it should also involve recovering the past salaries from them."

The fake degrees issue has been in the limelight in the country since 2010, as many parliamentarians faked their academic qualifications to be eligible to contest elections when a new rule made it compulsory for candidates to possess a bachelor degree. Then in 2015 the mega-scandal involving Axact and hundreds of fake universities and the worldwide sale of bogus degrees surfaced.