January 28, 2003	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 24, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 27: Got some urgent business in Karachi or vice-versa and need to reach there on time. Forget PIA, take the bus if you want to keep your schedule.

Because people in the PIA operations are confused, finding it hard to maintain the flight schedule, and instead of telling the truth to the passengers on their flights they are just dishing one excuse after another to hide their blushes.

This friend was coming up country, from Karachi to Islamabad with a brief stop at Lahore. He booked a seat on PIA flight no PK-2061, leaving Jinnah International Airport at 11:30am. He had already called his friend in Lahore to pick him up on arrival and had given him the flight number, a common practice all over the world.

The flight never took off from Karachi. The PIA staff at the airport cited ‘operational reasons’ for the cancellation of the flight and offered the people to adjust them on the next flight for Lahore, leaving at 2pm.

There was chaos at the airport. People were upset. Many had important meetings which they did not want to miss. Others had one reason or the other to travel by air instead of slower means of transportation. There were some foreigners on the flight as well who seemed desperate to reach their destination as some important meetings were scheduled. Instead of waiting, they decided to approach a private-sector airline which was kind enough to accommodate them on their flight which was leaving almost at the same time.

The fact that these visitors from friendly countries did not abuse loudly for the mess up only reflected their good manners, but the ‘local’ people were quite vocal in expressing their frustration and anger.

Meanwhile, whatever was going on at the Karachi airport was one side of the story. On the other side, at the Lahore airport people were anxiously waiting for the arrival of flight no. PK- 2061.

When they approached the flight inquiry, at least one person was clearly told that there was no PK-2061 coming from Karachi. “This flight is no where in our flight schedule. No such flight is coming from Karachi,” the officials at the flight inquiry told the gentleman, who was waiting for his friend to arrive.

As a result when the man travelling from Karachi finally arrived in Lahore there was nobody out to receive him. A number of frantic calls and some alternative arrangements made on emergency basis, not involving only one person but quite a few, ultimately resulted in the meeting of the two friends at the Lahore airport after over an hour-and-a-half!