Passengers strongly protested against the ill planning of PIA management when PIA delayed flights stranded around 1,100 passengers at the European airports while only 100 passengers, without their luggage, were adjusted to two other flights.
Sources in the airline said that disruption and delays at different European destinations due to bad weather were a matter of fact but the gross mishandling of transit passengers and non-provision of hotel and other facilities were the root cause of passengers' anger.
PIA flights, including flight PK 758/ 18 December, PK 7580/ 20 December, 786/18 December and 786/20 December, were delayed, causing inconvenience to Pakistani passengers, while the flight PK 785 was diverted to Paris, instead of London, which arrived at London Stansted airport on December 21.
Although European airports now are fully operational and have opened for international flights handling, PIA had cancelled its flight PK 757-758 Lahore-London-Lahore, flights PK 785-786 Islamabad-London-Islamabad, PK 789 from Karachi to Toronto, PK 737 Islamabad-Frankfurt, PK7O1 Islamabad-Manchester PK 753 Riyadh and PK 3459 was delayed by 2 to 11 hours.
Source said that PIA flights which landed in London were delayed two days due to bad weather while their luggage was transported to London after one day later which caused additional trouble to the passengers. PIA may face legal proceedings after severe mishandling of passengers of its Europe-bound flights, which were diverted to cities other than destinations due to bad weather.
Sources said that a flight, PK 771-772, from Lahore on December 19 via Copenhagen-Oslo, was delayed by 1-5 hours but since the passengers had seen PIA engineers working on the engine of the plane in severe weather and snowfall, they did not protest; rather they understood the situation and praised the PIA engineers for working in such severe weather.
PK 757 on December 18 to London from Lahore was diverted to Cologne, Germany, where PIA does not have an office and thus the passengers, on arrival, were handled by an agent who did not bother much about their facilitation. Those who had European passports were taken to hotels while the unfortunate ones, with Pakistani passports, were not allowed to leave the transit lounge, which was not a comfortable place to spend at least 2 nights till 5 am on December 20, when PIA staff reached from Frankfurt and started transit visa procedures.
A flight, from Islamabad to Birmingham, reached after being diverted to Frankfurt, but could not take off, as fuel was not supplied in time. PK 785, to London from Islamabad, which was diverted to Paris on December 18, also became a pain for its passengers when some of them were given hotel while many were left stranded.
Sources said that it was not only the weather which came down hard on Pakistanis travelling to Europe by the national flag carrier but also the usual inefficiency in crew planning. A flight, PK 701, on December 19 with approximately 180 passengers on board, took off from Islamabad but secretly planned to have a technical stopover at Istanbul to change cockpit crew whose limit of flying in a day was to exceed the prescribed limit, had it continued to London, as separate crew was assigned at Istanbul to take this flight further. However, unfortunately for PIA, the aircraft showed a technical fault for which the pilot diverted it to Karachi, against management's order to continue the flight.
After about one and a half hours brief stop at Karachi, the flight reached Istanbul for crew change but, as London had been closed for air traffic already, the passengers were taken to transit lounge, while the crew was taken to a hotel to complete its rest, as the standby crew had reported sick.
The stranded passengers at Istanbul were not allowed to leave the airport, while there were no proper arrangements to make their stay at Istanbul any comfortable. The flight from Istanbul was subsequently planned to leave around midday, Istanbul time, to reach Manchester at around 3 pm local time on December 20, instead of 5 pm December 19.
As a consequence of these delays, the management of the airline, which has a habit of waking up late in such situations, postponed its flights PK785 from Islamabad to London, PK 787 Karachi to London on December 19 to December 20, PK 769-770 of December 19 Islamabad Paris Frankfurt and back to December 21 and PK 785 of December 20 to December 21, a step which could have been taken earlier after receiving weather report. Such mishandling at non-local airports by other airlines was not reported.
Passengers said that while it is understood that weather is a natural phenomenon where airlines are not responsible for such situations, handling and facilitation are a field where the national flag carrier has proved to be a typical careless organisation just like the government which does not give a damn about what the nation is going through. They said that "while we did not have anything to feed to our children, especially the infants, the airline bosses were sleeping in their homes' comfort whose expenses are paid by the tickets we purchase".
Other foreign carriers were doing everything possible to provide as much comfort to their passengers as possible. In the same lounge, the passengers said, it was visible that airline's staff were providing blankets and edibles to their passengers when their flights were delayed or diverted due to weather.
The aircraft parking charges, hotel and refreshment provided to passengers, extra fuel and disruption in other schedules, etc are some of the factors costing dearly to the already cash strapped airline which could have avoided the loss by postponing the flights to these severe weather destinations.