PIA bans passengers for smoking, misbehaving with crew

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has blacklisted an undeclared number of passengers for misbehaving with the crew during Islamabad-Birmingham flight and flouting no-smoking rule, earlier this week.

According to PIA statement, the national carrier’s acting CEO Nayyar Hayat directed the airline authorities to ban the passengers concerned for their “unruly” behaviour on PK-791 with immediate effect.

“The concerned passengers were not only smoking during the flight but also misbehaved with cabin crew,” it said.

Yesterday, UK police arrested a British man of Pakistani origin for allegedly verbally abusing an air hostess and smoking during the same flight.

PIA often comes under fire for varied reasons – mostly when passengers aboard suffer an untoward incident.

In Februarya report came to light that a PIA jet flew from Karachi to Saudi Arabia carrying seven extra passengers, but denied they stood in the aisles for the three-hour journey.

It was reported that the January 20 flight to Medina carried 416 passengers, seven more than its capacity of 409 including jump seats, in a serious breach of air safety regulations.

“PIA is committed to ensure the safety of the passengers and cannot allow any incident to happen which compromises safety,” said Danyal Gillani while giving his statement on the incident.