Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan International Airlines have started diverting flights without informing Islamabad bound passengers about the diversion causing severe stress to passengers. PIA rescheduled the flight plan by routing its flight to Sukkur to lift and drop travelers from Karachi and Sukkur to Islamabad to salvage the situation after the grounding of ATRs.

It took passengers of Islamabad bound flight to reach Islamabad four and half hours as the departure time of PK-368 was 11am but the plane landed at Islamabad airport at 3.34pm instead of 12 45 PM.

An errant passenger Salma Mansoor on board the plane told Daily Times on Saturday that “PK-368 flight from Karachi to Islamabad had to depart on 11:00am, but the passengers were boarded the plane before 11:00am and made to wait for 50 minutes without giving any info regarding the delay.”

She further said, “According to the crew some passengers had been issued boarding cards, but they are unavailable and there luggage was in the plane, when inquired from the crew present in the plane.

Mansoor said, “It was revealed that the luggages belonging to the aforementioned passengers are off-loaded and after a lapse of 50 minutes the plane started heading toward Sukkur airport.”

“Flight PK-368 landed in Sukkur at 12:30pm and passengers got-off the plane. Some passengers also boarded the flight to PK-368 for Islamabad,” she said, “The plane was stopped for passengers for an hour or so then the plane finally flew to its original destination Islamabad.”

“The flight PK-368 landed at Islamabad airport at 3:32pm and it was still advised to remain seated for security purposes,” she informed.

“To rush to safe landing passengers were forced to return the lunch without been provided with tea or coffee, however, upon seating of new passengers from Sukkur airport fresh food boxes were distributed,” she added.

Replying to queries regarding PK-368, PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani told this scribe that as ATRs have been grounded PIA had planned a dip at Sukkur to facilitate the passengers. It was planned ahead of time and passengers were informed before hand about this diversion on the contact numbers they had given at the time of reservation.

53 passengers traveled on this flight on Karachi-Sukkur sector while 23 traveled on Sukkur-Islamabad sector, he informed.