All Uygur pilots serving the country's airlines were working normally in
China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and none had ever been relocated to
work for other airlines outside the northwest region.
Li Jian, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) deputy director,
yesterday dismissed foreign media stories that Uygur pilots had been suspended
from their jobs as "sheer fake reports."
To date, Chinese airlines have employed three Uygur pilots. Twoof them,
Aikebaier Maimaiti and Ailiyiming Niyazi, served as Boeing 757 captains for the
Xinjiang branch of China Southern Airlines, while the third, Dulihong, worked
with the Xinjiang General-use Airlines.
Aikebaier Maimaiti recently completed a two-way international flight between
Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, on
Tuesday morning. He told Xinhua in a phone interview, "Since August 1, I have
flown 36.05 hours on routes between Urumqi and Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and
Xi'an."
On Wednesday morning, he will fly between Urumqi and Islamabad, Pakistan.
Ailiyiming Niyazi told Xinhua he had flown safely for a total of 17,542
hours. Since Aug. 1, he had worked on routes between Urumqi and Hotan, Xiamen,
Shenzhen, Zhengzhou and Changsha.
All pilots, no matter whether they were Uygur or Han people, had to work
according to schedule. It was normal that sometimes they worked on flights
outside Xinjiang, said Zhang Zifang, China Southern Airlines deputy general
manager.
