Pakistan International Airlines is the worst airline in the world. Best known for sacrificing a goat for safety and flying with more passengers than seats (and making customers stand for 1700 miles), the airline’s CEO was actually detained as a result of his efforts to provide good seats and service by wet leasing aircraft from SriLankan.
Boeing 777 on Approach to New York JFK in 2014, Copyright zhukovsky / 123RF Stock Photo
The airline is so bad that even operating on time creates problems: customers build failure into their expectations and don’t actually show up for flights when they’re scheduled to depart.
Here’s a sample from an actual PIA flight.
Pakistan agreed to privatize PIA as a condition of receiving an IMF bailout. However the plan led to employee protests which turned violent in clashes with police involving rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas.
So what happens when a Paris – Islamabad flight was delayed on August 3rd, it was hot outside, and there’s no working air conditioning on the plane?
The aircraft doors were closed for a couple of hours. And passengers onboard flight PK750 were in extreme discomfort. Indeed, “a mother was begging for to open the door and to save her child who was completely unconscious when the air conditioning system was completely off” according to at least one report.
There’s footage from onboard the plane “show[ing] a woman pleading with the airline staff to open the door as her infant was experiencing breathlessness before take off.”
The airline now says they have a zero tolerance policy for overheating young children, although they suggest the incident wasn’t their fault.
#PIA #PressRelease pic.twitter.com/2z1agsUuWM
— PIA (@Official_PIA) August 8, 2018
(HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
It’s PIA. That’s all you need to say.
I agree, parents should be responsible in this case. The question is not opening the door but to call emergency and remove the child to hospital.
If my child went unconscious I would 1. be calling police and emergency on my cell and shortly thereafter 2. popping that emergency door. There is civil and there is a child in danger.
Why does people freaking out about on board temperatures and claiming the elderly and children are at death’s door seem to be a solely South Asian thing – but seemingly no one ever actually dies or even gets hospitalized?
Whenever I see these stories I always end up thinking the passengers are being a bunch of drama queens, probably due to being inexperienced travellers.
I’m watching the passengers fanning the old lady with paper magazines.
Why not just take off the black hood if you’re overheating inside it?
Yes lets all cram into a small area and scream and yell that will help keep the baby calm and keep the heat down.
Sam says: Why not just take off the black hood if you’re overheating inside it?
My thoughts exactly.