PESHAWAR, Sept 2: The Peshawar-based office of Pakistan International Airlines has asked the headquarters to immediately provide three additional fleets for carrying Umra passengers from here to Jeddah, sources in the national flag carrier told Dawn on Thursday.

The PIA headquarters had not yet entertained the request despite many letters sent to Karachi and was also not providing the required numbers of seats in the regular flights to the passengers of NWFP, who had intended to perform Umra, the sources said.

If the PIA officials did not meet the demand within a week time, many passengers might not perform Umra because their visas would expire, said a senior official. "We have demanded of the PIA headquarters to provide two wide-bodied planes to carry the NWFP passengers from Islamabad on Sept 4, 6 and 10.

"It is unjustified as the PIA has provided only 30 seats in the flight via Karachi on Sept 7, against the demand for 1,500 seats," he lamented. He said the PIA airlifted 200 passengers to Saudi Arabia on weekly basis that also included 50 Umra performers.

"But from Karachi, the PIA carries 500 passengers for Umra on daily basis, whereas the number of passengers from Islamabad and Lahore is 900 every week," the official said. The PIA also provided an additional flight every week to cater the number of the Umra passengers' demand from these main cities.

The Peshawar office had been sending requests to the PIA headquarters almost daily but until now they had neither provided additional flights nor were providing additional seats in the regular flights to fulfil the local demand, the sources maintained.

According to these sources, many PIA passengers sales agents are now returning the PIA tickets and trying to reserve seats in another privately-owned airliner, because the passengers's Umra visas will get expired if they did not proceed to Jeddah on time.