Pakistan Flight To Medina Took 7 Extra Passengers Standing on Aisle: Reports

File photo of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane. (Photo: Reuters)

New Delhi: A Pakistan International Airlines flight to Saudi Arabia allegedly allowed seven extra passengers who travelled standing on the aisle.

The incident occurred on January 20 on flight from Karachi to Medina.

The aircraft, a Boeing 777, carried a total of 416 passengers against a capacity of 409, including staff seats.

PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani told the BBC that the airline is investigating how it was allowed to happen. The passengers were allowed on the flight despite every seat being filled, he said.

It came to light after being reported by Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. Staff had issued additional handwritten boarding passes, the paper reported.

This would have caused problems because in an emergency evacuation and passengers would not have had access to oxygen if it was suddenly required, aviation experts said told the BBC.

This is the first time the airline boarded excess passengers on a flight.

Dawn accuses Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority of “not taken punitive action against the airline or its staffers for putting the passengers’ lives at risk”.

The newspaper quoting airline sources accuses PIA ground traffic staff of issuing handwritten boarding passes to the extra passengers. It quoted the flight captain, Anwer Adil, insisting that he was not told about the extra passengers until after take-off.

“I… noticed [that] some people were those who were categorically refused jump [staff] seats by me at the check-in counter before the flight”, he was quoted by Dawn as saying.

“I had already taken off and the senior purser did not inform me about extra passengers before closing the aircraft door.

“Therefore after take-off [any] immediate landing back at Karachi was not possible as it required a lot of fuel dumping which was not in the interest of the airline.”

Gilani said, “The matter is under investigation and appropriate action will be taken once responsibility is fixed.”