Pakistan Embassy in Vietnam on Tuesday said that there are five Pakistani pilots working in Vietnam for VietJet Air and their verification has been underway. The embassy announced that all the Pakistani pilots will resume their duties soon.

https://twitter.com/PakistaninHanoi/status/1277827528351080449

“All five of them have over 30 years’ experience of flying aircraft,” the embassy said in a tweet posted on its official twitter account.

Vietnam’s aviation authority on Monday said it had grounded all Pakistani pilots working for local airlines, amid concern from global regulators that some pilots may have been using “dubious” licences.

The issue of dubious licences drew global attention after Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan in the National Assembly declared that 150 pilots of the national flag carrier, Pakistan International Airlines, had fake licences.

Last week, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expressed concern over the "serious lapse in licensing and safety oversight by the aviation regulator".

“The head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has ordered a suspension for all Pakistani pilots working for Vietnamese airlines,” the CAAV said in a statement.

The suspension will be in effect until further notice from CAAV, it said, adding that the authority is coordinating with Pakistani authorities to review the pilots’ profiles.

According to Reuters, 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.

Of the 12 active pilots, 11 were working for budget airlines Vietjet Aviation and one for Jetstar Pacific, a unit of the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, Reuters said.

However on the other hand, Embassy of Pakistan, Hanoi, Vietnam also clarified that, “We have shared the correct information.”

Vietnam Airlines and Bamboo Airways were not using any pilots from Pakistan, the CAAV said.

Vietnamese airlines currently have 1,260 pilots, with nearly half of them holding foreign citizenship, according to the CAAV.