Fully booked Pak airliner flies extra people standing
KARACHI: Pakistan’s state-run airline is investigating how seven passengers travelled from Karachi to Saudi Arabia while standing in the aisle of a flight, which has been described by authorities as a breach of regulations.
The passengers were allowed to board the Pakistan International Airline flight to Medina on January 20 even though every seat was filled. The Boeing 777 had a total capacity of 409 seats, including jump seats for the staff, but carried 416 passengers.
The additional passengers were issued hand-written boarding passes, instead of computer-generated ones, for the three-hour flight. The flight’s computer-generated list, provided to crew by ground staff, did not mention the passengers.
The matter was reported by the influential Dawn newspaper on Friday, prompting an investigation by the airline, which has been plagued by controversies and mounting losses in recent years.
The extra passengers constituted a serious breach of air safety as their presence could have led to problems in the event of an emergency. Passengers without seats would not have had access to oxygen masks in a contingency and could have caused congestion during a possible emergency evacuation.
The Dawn reported PIA’s management had initially not taken any action against those responsible for the over-crowding. The Dawn quoted its sources as saying that the flight’s pilot, senior purser and traffic staffers had tried to shift the blame on to each other. The Civil Aviation Authority, the aviation regulator, too has not taken any action against the airline or its staffers.