ISLAMABAD, Dec 6: The post-PCO Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Pakistan International Airlines not to remove its female cabin crew pending final adjudication of an appeal and submit a complete suitability assessment report on the matter by the end of this month.

In a chamber hearing, Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar restrained the corporation from firing the female crew when Advocate Sheikh Riazul Haq, representing airhostesses, said his clients were facing threats of removal from jobs.

Deputy Attorney General Nahida Mehboob Ellahi told Dawn she had informed the chief justice that the case could not be proceeded in the absence of the suitability report on retirement age of women cabin staff which the PIA had failed to submit on the due date of October 31.

Chaudhry Arshad, representing PIA, assured the chief justice that the suitability report would be filed by Dec 31 -- the next date of hearing.The pre-PCO Supreme Court had stayed PIA from fixing the retirement age of airhostesses at 35, till the final disposal of its appeal against a judgment of the Sindh High Court.

Some female cabin crew had approached the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, and complained that the PIA administration had asked them to go on forced leave, giving ‘biased and absolutely meaningless’ reasons such as dull and poor appearance, scars on face, big gap in the front teeth and the age-factor affecting looks.

In a three-page application representing 98 cabin crew, they had requested the then chief justice to direct the airline to withdraw the insulting remarks as well as the letters of forced retirement by calling the women crew to immediately join duty.

They claimed that they had been appointed through a proper procedure and factors like scars on the face or gap in teeth were never pointed out at the time of their selection.

The application had said that female staff had to sacrifice a lot for being away from their family for long duration and had to perform their duty at night and odd hours and had to remain exposed to pressurised atmosphere of aircraft for extended periods.

Instead of being appreciated, the female crew were being victimised by calling them dull and old with poor shape, they said. “These remarks are inhuman as age factor is a natural phenomenon and nobody could expect that the female cabin staff would be young forever.”

They accused the PIA administration of recruiting women from Japan, Thailand, Kenya, Russia and Greece by offering them a monthly remuneration of $5,000, compared to Rs15,000 to Rs20,000 being given to the local women staff.

They accused the PIA administration of committing a blunder at a very high cost by appointing foreign crew, a majority of them could not even communicate in English -- a standard mode of communication throughout the world.

Instead of firing these under-utilised and expensive employees, the complainants alleged, the PIA administration was targeting the mainstream female employees who had rendered valuable services to the airline.

The administration is also discriminating the female crew through forced retirements at the age of 45 in violation of earlier judgments of the superior courts directing PIA to follow government’s retirement rules.