Lahore: Pakistan's national carrier PIA has sacked its five employees, including two air hostesses, who were recently detained at Heathrow airport in London for money laundering and smuggling smart phones and other restricted items.
The Heathrow airport customs authorities had detained five crew members of Pakistan International Airlines from a London-Karachi flight PK-788 and searched the crew's luggage for two hours and recovered 29,000 pounds and a large quantity of smart phones.
The crew members were debriefed for another two hours after the recovery of the currency and restricted items from their luggage.
The custom authorities confiscated the currency and mobile phones, but allowed the five crew members to return to Karachi with a warning to the PIA management.
PIA Manager Public Relations Yasmin Haroon said the five crew members of the flight PK-788 have been terminated from service for carrying restricted items in excess of their (duty-free) personal allowances.
"The PIA will not tolerate such offences by its crew members. We have terminated all five crew members including two air hostesses as it is bringing a bad name to the country," she said.
The crew members have been identified as Mohammad Ahmad, Owais Ahmed, Tauseef Ahmad and air hostesses Saadia Nabeel and Fareeha Mukhtar.
Accusations of smuggling are not new for PIA crew members, who have on numerous occasions faced probes from domestic as well as international authorities for violating regulatory procedures.
Heathrow airport authorities had recently issued a "yellow card" (or warning) to the PIA for allegedly violating laws of the United Kingdom.
The Border Force Heathrow included PIA in the yellow category because its crew members were allegedly involved in carrying restricted items or goods in excess of their (duty-free) personal allowances.
The border force said the PIA would be included in the "red category" (stopped from entering in the UK) if it continued violating the laws of the land.
"Since the incident of smuggling (restricted goods) by the PIA crew members are on the rise the management has decided to take stringent action (termination) instead of mere suspension from service to deal with the menace," Haroon said.
