Lahore: The Pakistani International Airlines around 30 domestic and international flights were cancelled while it operated 15 under-capacity flights and five over-capacity flights between July 29 and Aug 7, causing great inconvenience to passengers.
Giving some of the instances, official sources said four flights were cancelled on July 29 while a Karachi-Jeddah flight was delayed for eight hours. The management operated B-777 instead of A-320 on Lahore-Dammam-Lahore route the same day in which approximately 150 seats were not utilised while it operated A-320 instead of B-777 on Lahore-Karachi (Pk-305) route that resulted in heavy off-loading.
On July 31, it operated A-320 instead of B-777 on Karachi-Lahore (Pk 306) route which resulted in the off-loading of around 150 passengers.
Similarly, the airline operated B-777 instead of A-320 on Karachi-Lahore-Karachi (Pk-306-307) route that resulted in non-utilization of around 150 seats.
On Aug 6, five flights were cancelled while two B-777s were operated instead of A-320 on Lahore-Riyadh-Lahore (Pk-725-726) and Lahore-Karachi (Pk-305) routes, resulting in the non-utilisation of around 300 seats.
PIA spokesman Aamir Memon told Dawn that the national flag carrier had informed its passengers about the cancellation of flights well in time to avoid any inconvenience. “The flights are cancelled and different-seat aircraft are placed according to the need for different destinations,” he said.
Memon said the PIA would start third flight a week for Beijing from Islamabad and fifth a day on the Karachi-Lahore-Karachi route from Aug 18.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Airline Pilots’ Association General Secretary Sohail Ahmed said the PIA management on the one hand was contemplating to offer contracts to retired pilots and on the other it had totally jeopardized promotions of pilots in order to create a shortage to justify contracts mainly for B-777 captains retiring in near future.
“The management is holding back the training process of a large number of cadet pilots for last four years. The mismanagement in placement of crew on various equipment has resulted in creating a massive disruption in flight schedule,” Ahmed said.
