Staff strike ends as Pakistan national carrier's Oman flights to resume

Muscat: Pakistan International Airlines will resume its flight operations to Oman today after the seven-day long strike by PIA employees ended on Tuesday.
A PIA flight from Lahore landed in Multan on Tuesday, signalling the end of a deadlock between the government and the national carrier’s employees protesting against its planned privatisation.
“We are expecting a PIA flight from Islamabad tomorrow (Wednesday), which is scheduled to depart at 11:30 pm and arrive in Muscat at 1:40 am. The same flight will then depart at 2:40 am,” confirmed Shahzad Paracha, country manager,PIA Oman.
“We were actually due to receive a flight from Sialkot today (Tuesday) and I had received its movement plan too, but it was cancelled due to a technical problem in the plane, which may have happened largely because of six days of non-operations,” added Paracha.
PIA Oman claims to have been helping its stranded passengers catch flights on other airlines even if that meant purchasing new tickets for its customers.
The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Pakistan International Airline (PIA) on Tuesday announced it is putting an end to the long strike with immediate effect, media reports from Karachi said.
Announcing the end to the strike at a press conference in Karachi, Chairman JAC, Sohail Baloch, said he has issued directives to the concerned authorities to resume PIA’s flight operations from today.
He said the JAC cannot remain negligent to the safety of the planes while the government has also expressed its concerns regarding the hardships being faced by the passengers.
“Safety of the planes and passengers is our foremost priority,” he added. Without taking any name, he said, all the issues were resolved due to the intervention of a ‘kind friend’.
Sohail Baloch said he along with his team is leaving here today for Lahore where he is scheduled to meet government representatives including Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.