As to the report, Maryam Raza, a crew member, took PIA aircraft PK-782 from Islamabad to Toronto on Tuesday and arrived there without reporting for duty. The next day, she took flight PK-784 back to Karachi, but failed to report for duty.
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When the police broke into Maryam’s hotel room to begin searching for her, they discovered her PIA uniform and a message that said, “Thank you, PIA.” Maryam has spent fifteen years working for the national airline of Pakistan.
A representative for the airline claims that Maryam’s abduction occurred one month after PIA flight crew member Faiza Mukhtar mysteriously vanished in a similar manner in January.
A day after his arrival in Canada, Mukhtar was scheduled to return to Karachi, but he “did not board the flight and disappeared”. Meanwhile, the officials blame Canada’s accommodative legal system, which permits asylum claims to be made after entering the nation, for the pattern of crew members going missing. The pattern of Pakistani flight attendants vanishing after crewing an aircraft to Canada reportedly began in 2019 and has since intensified. At least seven PIA cabin crew workers vanished from sight in Canada during their shifts last year.
According to a PIA official, two cabin crew members who were scheduled to return to work in December 2023 but arrived in Toronto from Lahore did not show up.
Following their arrival in Canada in November and December of 2023, PIA crew men Ayaz Qureshi, Khalid Afridi, and Fida Hussain Shah are said to have remained there.
The representative stated that one crew member who had fled while on duty a number of years prior has subsequently relocated to Canada and is now able to advise other crew members who are thinking about applying for asylum.
In order to stop similar occurrences in the future, he added, PIA has been working with Canadian authorities.
