PIA flights to London, Chicago and Toronto delayed

[zerbaer]

PIA flights to London, Chicago and Toronto delayed

* Luggage of international passengers mixed up
* PIA says bad weather and shortage of staff caused delay

Staff Report

LAHORE: Passengers flying Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) faced many problems on Eidul Azha when the Lahore-London and Lahore-Chicago (via Manchester) flights were first delayed for more than six hours and later rescheduled for Wednesday. The Lahore-Toronto flight took off after a delay of more than four hours on Tuesday.

Passengers said there were rumours of operational (technical) problems, which PIA has allegedly been facing on its international-bound airplanes. They said there were also reports that the luggage of international passengers had been mixed and could not be separated because of a strike by luggage handlers. PIA authorities did not handle the situation too well, as apparently they put the mixed luggage of all passengers on the conveyer belt and asked the owners to identify their bags. Passengers told Daily Times that the London flight was scheduled to take off at 11:55am, Chicago flight at 8:00am and Toronto flight at 9.00am. The Toronto flight took off after 1:00pm. Passengers said they had checked in their luggage and boarded their planes, but were then told that the flight to London was two hours late because of check-in and other problems. At about 6:00pm passengers on the London- and Chicago-bound flights were asked to check-in with the immigration staff again because their flights had been rescheduled for Wednesday, passengers said, adding that PIA gave no reason for the rescheduling. Passengers returned to the airport on Wednesday morning, but faced another delay because PIA had mixed their luggage. The London flight took off at 12:00pm, while the Chicago flight took off after 11:00am.

PIA sources told Daily Times that it faced a shortage of staff because of Eid holidays. They blamed senior PIA officials at the Lahore airport for the problem.

A PIA spokesperson told Daily Times that the delays and rescheduling of the flights were because of technical problems and that “PIA regrets this inconvenience”. A statement released by PIA on Wednesday said the Toronto, London and Chicago-bound flights were delayed because of bad weather and fog over and around Lahore. It also said that during the same hours eight other international flights were departing and the airport had a limited number of immigration counters to process the international passengers.

It stated that the luggage of the eight international flights was sent through a single conveyor belt in the luggage segregation areas and that the conveyor belt developed a technical fault, which took extra time to segregate. “This resulted in excessive delays on all these flights, which involved crew duty time limitation and curfew at London. All efforts were made to expedite the departures of PK-757/793, but because of the above unavoidable circumstances passengers had to have a night layover at Lahore,” the statement added.

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... And they said there were too many employees per aircraft!

[AirBlue]

i remember the tuesday flight was resked. at 10pm toronto time instead of its scheduled 6pm ... the airplane reached at 8pm lol so i really dont know how they turned around a T7 in 2 hours

[sadiqhassan]

i remember the tuesday flight was resked. at 10pm toronto time instead of its scheduled 6pm ... the airplane reached at 8pm lol so i really dont know how they turned around a T7 in 2 hours

Emirates usually manages to turn around its 773s in Karach in under 1h 15m although I assume the Toronto stopover would be more time consuming because of additional fuel requirements etc?

[Abbas Ali]

Flight delays cause mess at Lahore Airport

By Zulqernain Tahir

LAHORE, Jan 3: The postponement of two international flights of the national airlines and delay in another's departure owing to poor visibility resulted in a mess up at the Allama Iqbal International Airport here on Tuesday, a day after Eidul Azha.

Informed sources told Dawn on Wednesday that the passengers of Chicago- and London-bound PIA flights were forced to disembark when they refused to leave the planes after the announcement of postponement of the flights by the PIA.

The flights -- PK-793 for Lahore-Manchester-Chicago, PK-757 for Lahore-London and PK-789 for Lahore-Toronto -- were scheduled to leave for their destinations at 8am, 10am and 9am, respectively.

The passengers of Chicago- and London-bound flights were issued boarding cards and they had subsequently boarded the planes, the sources said, adding that as weather conditions improved after about five hours’ delay of flights’ scheduled departure time the crew refused to operate, saying the flights had been time-barred.

The airline officials then announced the postponement of the flights for Wednesday, and requested the passengers to disembark from the planes. The sources said that most of the passengers declined to follow the instructions, and the authorities concerned sought the help of the Airport Security Force (ASF) to force the passenger to leave the planes.

Some passengers reportedly complained that the ASF officials had misbehaved with them for resisting to the 'quick implementation' of the PIA's instructions.

The sources said the luggage of both flights was mixed up and the passengers faced great inconvenience to retrieve them. The passengers later gathered at the (airport) lounge and shouted slogans against the PIA high-ups for mismanaging the flight schedule.

Similarly, the passengers of Toronto-bound flight also expressed their anger for six hours’ delay in the departure.

While explaining reasons, a PIA spokesman told Dawn by telephone that bad weather caused the delay and postponement of the flights. He said during the same hours of operations, eight other flights of different airlines, including Emirates, Thai International and Aero Asia, were also to take off with a limited number of immigration counters.

Source: DAWN

[samee380]

OH MAN my parents are going on 6th jan from LHR TO LHE hope its gets sorted what do you think? fog is playing bad also at LHE

[Amaad Lone]

The fog is gone.

This time it lasted only for around 4 days.

No fog in Lahore since the past few days.