The rescheduling of Pakistan International Airlines' lone Karachi-New York direct flight via Lahore/Islamabad has been resented by Advisor to the Sindh Chief Minister on Information and Media Salahuddin Haider.
In the new timetable issued by PIA, all the five flights will now go to New York via Lahore/Islamabad. A PIA spokesman, when approached for comments, said that "load factor" was the main consideration for rescheduling the direct Karachi-New York flight via Lahore/Islamabad. The direct flights were not carrying full load, he said.
Paradoxically, however, the situation tells a different story. It has generally been observed that those travelling to New York find it difficult to get confirmed seats. Whenever they approach any travel agency or local PIA booking offices, they face a waiting period of two to four weeks for getting a confirmed seat.
Salahuddin Haider said that the city of Karachi, which was the economic hub of the country, attracting maximum number of businessmen and tourists from abroad and reporting an ever-increasing number of departures of families to the US during vacations needed proper attention by the national carrier.
All the five flights to New York, he said, were being routed via Lahore and Islamabad entailing at least five hours cumbersome boredom for passengers travelling from Karachi to New York or Houston.
He requested the PIA Chairman to do away with the injustice with the people of Karachi and order at least once a week direct flight from Karachi to New York and Karachi to Houston. This will save precious travelling time of passengers and help generate more traffic because, at present, PIA was loosing a substantial number of passengers to foreign airlines.
Until last year, PIA used to increase the number of flights to Houston to two per week during the summer vacations - June and onwards - to cope with the holiday traffic rush, but so far there was no announcement in this regard from PIA.
Of the two flights, one used to fly to Houston via Manchester and the other via Lahore and Manchester. If calculated in terms of time, from door-to-door, the passengers had to brave on Karachi-Lahore-Manchester flight at least 30 hours of ordeal.
Carriers from Gulf countries like Emirates and others, taking advantage of this situation, are now offering direct flights to destinations like London, New York and Houston from their hub. Passengers find it much more convenient travelling to these hubs with immediate onward connections available for their destinations.