GILGIT, July 17 (TNS): Tourists and passengers protested at Skardu airport against a four-hour delay of a PIA Skardu-Islamabad flight on Tuesday, alleging that the airline management had sacrificed customers’ rights to favour Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) officials with an ‘air safari’.
Sources said that the PIA Skardu-bound flight took off from Islamabad airport on Tuesday morning, with top CAA officials and Gilgil-Baltistan senior PML-N member Akbar Taban on board. Usually, when the flight takes off from Islamabad, the boarding passes for the returning flight are issued in Skardu. The normal flight time between the two cities is 45 minutes. On this occasion, however, passengers in Skardu said that it took the aircraft four hours to arrive after they had been issued boarding passes.
Accusing PIA of having delayed the flight to take VIP passengers from Islamabad on an air safari comprising the K2, Nanga Parbat and other mountain peaks, the passengers complained that they were not even allowed to use the washrooms in the PIA waiting room in Skardu.
A video of a woman who had apparently come to Skardu as a tourist started circulating on social media in which she was lashing out at the PIA management. “People are waiting for us in Islamabad,” she is heard saying. “We have been held hostage for the past four hours.”
