PIA sorry for ‘forgetting’ two corpses in New York

ISLAMABAD: Two corpses were left behind at a New York airport instead of being flown to Lahore, Pakistan’s national airline said, apologising on Wednesday for the latest embarrassing mishap to hit the troubled carrier.

The oversight occurred on Saturday at New York’s JFK airport as the airline prepared for its final flight from the US city to Lahore via Manchester, with the route since suspended.

Following the mix-up, the corpse of Pakistani man Nasir Ali was delivered to Lahore on Wednesday on a Etihad Airways flight, while the family of Nauman Badar has now decided to bury him in Maryland, the US, instead.

Pakistan International Airlines chairman Musharraf Rasool Cyan ordered an inquiry into the oversight, a spokesman said.

PIA “regrets the inconvenience caused due to negligence... and expresses its sympathies with the family members of the deceased persons,” he said.

PIA was once considered a global leader in commercial aviation until the 1970s but has since been plagued by myriad controversies in recent years and saddled by billions of dollars of debt with a potential government bailout looming.

Domestic flights are often delayed for VIPs while flight employees have been caught smuggling goods ranging from iPhones to narcotics.

In 2013, a pilot was jailed for nine months in Britain for being drunk before he was due to fly from Leeds.