Last year, at least seven PIA cabin crew members went missing in Canada. (Representative pic)
A cabin crew member of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flew to Canada on Tuesday, but she went abruptly missing after landing, Pakistani news agency Dawn reported. The air hostess was identified as Maryam Raza. She landed in Canada's Toronto on PIA flight PK-782 from Islamabad on Monday. However, she failed to report for duty on the return flight, PK-784 to Karachi. Notably, Ms Raza is one of the several PIA staffers who have "vanished" in Canada in recent years.
According to Dawn, Ms Raza joined the national flag carrier 15 years ago. She was assigned to the flight from Islamabad to Toronto on Monday. But after landing in Canada on Tuesday, the PIA crew member didn't report for duty on her return flight to Karachi a day later. When the authorities started looking for Ms Raza, they opened her hotel room and found her PIA uniform along with a note reading "Thank You, PIA".
An airline's spokesperson said that Ms Raza's disappearance marks the second such instance this year, where a PIA stewardess disappeared upon arrival in Canada. Last month, another PIA flight crew member Fazia Mukhtar went abruptly missing in a similar way. The outlet reported that Ms Mukhtar was rostered to fly back to Karachi a day after landing in Canada, but she didn't board the flight and disappeared.
Officials attributed this trend to the accommodating nature of Canadian law, which allows for asylum applications after entry into the country.
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According to the report, the trend of Pakistani flight attendants disappearing after landing in Canada started in 2019. Last year, at least seven PIA cabin crew members went missing in Canada while performing their flight duties.
In November, Dawn reported that two senior flight attendants slipped away in Canada, shortly after a PIA flight from Islamabad landed in Toronto. The flight attendants, identified as Khalid Mehmood and Feda Hussain, reached Canada from Islamabad by PIA flight PK772. On reaching Toronto, they slipped away instead of returning to the country, a spokesman for PIA said.
The carrier's spokesman said one of the crew members who had slipped away while on duty some years ago has now settled in Canada and "advises" other crew members mulling asylum. He added that the PIA management has been coordinating with Canadian authorities to stop such incidents in future.