PIA yet to facilitate victims despite PM's directions

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

By: Syed Danish Hussain | Published: April 28, 2010
ISLAMABAD – The passengers, especially students, who were scheduled to fly to Europe from April 15-21 but their flights were cancelled due to Iceland volcano eruption are now facing immense difficulties including visa expiry mainly because of uncooperative attitude of PIA staff.
Although Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had clearly directed the PIA authorities to facilitate students, senior citizens and people having emergencies on humanitarian grounds, yet the authorities concerned were not assisting such passengers. It was learnt when this scribe visited PIA Office at The Mall, Rawalpindi, where a large number of students and other people were urging the PIA officials to accommodate them on urgent basis, besides providing them proofs and telling them about the nature of their emergencies. But the officials there were refusing them on the ground that they could not do anything in this regard.
Muhammad Zaheer, a passenger, while talking to TheNation said that he was supposed to leave for Birmingham, UK, on April 17 but his flight was cancelled due to volcanic ashes. After resuming the air traffic on April 22, the PIA officials didn’t facilitate him and his visa expired on April 25.
He added that he provided PIA official sufficient evidence regarding the nature of his emergency.
Zaheer said, “I visited The Mall office thrice and tried to reconfirm my seat before the expiry date but no official of the airline bothered to listen my problem and my visa expired. I visited several time to PIA head office, at Mall Road, Rawalpindi, and even offered to purchase new ticket but to no avail.”
One more Pakistani origin British female passenger, who hails from Kashmir, stated that she had been staying in a hotel for the last 10 days but so far could not succeed to board on a flight. She said that she had left her two children in UK but she was compelled to stay due to air traffic problems and unsporting services of PIA.