ISLAMABAD: Pakistan International Airlines confirmed on Monday that it had carried seven passengers more than the maximum on an international flight and had launched disciplinary measures against the crew.
A PIA spokesman denied a newspaper report that the extra passengers were forced to stand for the 3-hour flight from Karachi to Madinah in Saudi Arabia on January 20.
“It is not possible for anyone to travel like that in an aircraft, regardless of the duration of the flight,” Danyal Gillani said but did not clarify how the passengers had spent the journey.
A pilot and two other crew members were being disciplined, he said.
“Strict action would be taken against anyone found at fault. PIA is committed to ensure the safety of the passengers and cannot allow any incident to happen which compromises safety,” Gillani said.
Earlier in the day, PIA issued show-cause notices to a pilot and two others officials for the incident, according to a media report on Monday.
Capt Anwer Adil, senior purser (air hostess) Hina Turab, and terminal manager Akbar Ali Shah were issued notices for allegedly letting extra passengers travel on jump seats and the cockpit on PIA flight PK-743, Dawn newspaper reported.
The development came after an inquiry committee set up by the airline found the allegations to be true, it said.
The Boeing 777 aircraft has a seating capacity of 409, including jump seats, while flight PK-743 carried 416 passengers from Karachi to Madinah on January 20.
“After in-depth investigation. it has been confirmed that passenger[s] travelled on [the] flight are over and above of the aircraft configuration [including jump seats], which is a clear violation of SOP [standard operating procedures] and violation of passenger safety,” says a report signed by Manager Operations Sohail Jaffar Ali.
As per SOPs in cases like these, the report said, the aircraft should be parked again to offload extra passengers “which was not done in this case”, the paper quoted the document as saying.
“Such type of violation/irregularity cannot be ignored in which safety of the passenger[s] is on [sic] stake,” it said.
Quoting sources, the paper said Capt Adil will not be able to operate flights after being issued the notice. The Civil Aviation Authority is also investigating allegations of safety violation against the captain.
The Dawn had reported last week that as many as seven passengers were forced to stand throughout the over three-hour flight after the airline boarded excess passengers.
The airline’s spokesman said media reports that some passengers travelled standing were “exaggerated and baseless. It is not possible for anyone to travel like that in an aircraft, regardless of the duration of the flight,” he had said.
PIA, was once a symbol of Pakistan’s engineering and aviation prowess but now suffers from huge debts, an ageing fleet and a string of corruption scandals.
The airline has accumulated liabilities of over Rs300 billion (Dh10.51 billion) and an additional loss of more than Rs5.6 billion is being added to this amount every month, the PIA management told a Senate committee at a briefing last month. The panel was also informed that the airline earned around Rs7.5 billion a month while its expenses were over Rs13.14 billion.
