A flight attendant from Pakistan recently went missing in Canada. The disappearance of the lady associated with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has triggered a sensation in the South Asian country. As Maryam Raza, the air hostess, did not return for her duty on the return flight to Karachi, the concerned PIA authorities started to look for her in her Toronto hotel. They found Raza’s PIA uniform in her room, with a note that read: “Thank You, PIA.” Her note indicates that Raza left her country voluntarily.

Raza was on a PIA flight that left Islamabad for Toronto on February 26, 2024. The aircraft was supposed to return to Karachi the next day. However, Raza was not on the return flight. In fact, cases of Pakistani flight attendants going missing in Canada are not new. The same thing happened several times before, and Raza has joined this trend!

In January 2024, Faiza Mukhtar, a flight attendant employed by PIA, was on duty for flight PK 781 from Islamabad to Toronto. The flight landed in Toronto on January 18, 2024. Mukhtar was scheduled to depart the following day on flight PK 784 from Toronto to Karachi. She, too, did not show up for duty, and could not be traced. On February 29, PIA flight steward Jibran Baloch performed his duties on flight PK-782. However, he failed to turn up for duty on the return flight. Only after a sweep of his hotel room, the PIA staff revealed that the steward had slipped away.

A Pakistani media house has claimed that airmen from that country have been seeking asylum abroad since 2018. The media house has also reported that several PIA staff have applied for asylum in Canada, and the majority of them are between 35- and 40-year-old. As per statistics, there has been an increase in the incidence of Pakistani crew members disappearing in Canada in recent times. At least seven PIA staff did not return from Canada in 2023, and two of them went missing in Toronto in December. In their absence, the aircraft had to return to Islamabad without the necessary crew. In 2022, four PIA crew members did not return from Canada.

In its official site, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has shared a post that reads: “You can ask for asylum when you arrive in Canada at the airport. If you are fleeing your country because you fear persecution or risk to your life, you can apply for asylum in Canada. If you are granted asylum, you will receive refugee status and the Right to Stay. To apply for asylum, you must be physically present in Canada or be seeking entry into the country at a point of entry (airport, land border or seaport).”

Meanwhile, experts are of the opinion that the Pakistani nationals have started leaving their country because of the ongoing economic turmoil. The condition of the PIA, too, is not so good. Hence, the PIA staff do not find job security in Pakistan. At one time, foreign passengers used to praise PIA for providing excellent service. Unfortunately, PIA is not what it used to be.

Interestingly, a spokesperson of the Pakistani airline has attributed these disappearances to Canada’s lenient immigration policies and liberal asylum procedures, stressing: “There is no failure (on the part of the airline) as we have tried to put in the most stringent possible efforts to curtail that. However, the laws of Canada are so liberal that those measures become counter-effective.” According to the spokesperson, the PIA has already asked the flight staff to submit their passports to the officials. However, the move has failed to yield any results.

The Government of Pakistan recently approved the privatisation of PIA in an attempt to save the airline from going bankrupt.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das