The Aviation Division has directed three airlines of the country to immediately ground 160 pilots with dubious licences, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Saturday.

The orders issued to the chief executive officers of these airlines show that 141 pilots are from the PIA while 10 work for SereneAir and nine for Airblue.

It is reported that the report on these dubious licences was prepared by a fact-finding committee of the Aviation Division, which conducted an IT forensic analysis of data and record.

The Aviation Division also directed the airlines to submit a report on the process of grounding these pilots on the basis of flight safety and security reasons.

Earlier on Friday, Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) would ground 262 pilots whose credentials may have been falsified.

According to a report published by Khaleej Times, the minister said the pilots in the line of fire included 141 from the PIA, 10 from SereneAir and nine from Airblue.

The remaining pilots were either associated with flying clubs or chartered plane services, he said, adding that the airlines and the flying clubs had been conveyed that “their credentials are dubious, and they shouldn't be allowed to fly”.

Ghulam Sarwar said five CAA officials would be penalised for assisting the pilots in getting dubious licences.

Also on Friday, the PIA spokesperson said the airline had removed six pilots from service for having fake degrees in 2018 and 2019 after which the aviation ministry launched an inquiry.

However, the airline grounded 17 pilots after an internal inquiry for having dubious licences, he said. “These 17 pilots are grounded for the last one-and-half year but the aviation ministry hasn’t completed their inquiry.”

The spokesperson said the bogus licences were an issue for all the airlines and wasn’t limited to the PIA.

He also made it clear that the airline could not stop any pilot from flying without having the list as the licences had issued by the country’s authorised authority.

The spokesperson also said that the PIA or any other airline could not reject the licences because of being issued by the relevant agency, as he called for the provision of the list so that they could stop the suspected pilots from flying.

On the other hand, the revelation made by the government about these dubious licences may create a snowball effect as there are media reports that different airlines in the region are now thinking about grounding the pilots and engineers from Pakistan. These airlines include Kuwait Airways, Omar Air and Vietnam Airlines.