LAHORE, Jan 3: The postponement of two international flights of the national airlines and delay in another's departure owing to poor visibility resulted in a mess up at the Allama Iqbal International Airport here on Tuesday, a day after Eidul Azha.

Informed sources told Dawn on Wednesday that the passengers of Chicago- and London-bound PIA flights were forced to disembark when they refused to leave the planes after the announcement of postponement of the flights by the PIA.

The flights -- PK-793 for Lahore-Manchester-Chicago, PK-757 for Lahore-London and PK-789 for Lahore-Toronto -- were scheduled to leave for their destinations at 8am, 10am and 9am, respectively.

The passengers of Chicago- and London-bound flights were issued boarding cards and they had subsequently boarded the planes, the sources said, adding that as weather conditions improved after about five hours’ delay of flights’ scheduled departure time the crew refused to operate, saying the flights had been time-barred.

The airline officials then announced the postponement of the flights for Wednesday, and requested the passengers to disembark from the planes. The sources said that most of the passengers declined to follow the instructions, and the authorities concerned sought the help of the Airport Security Force (ASF) to force the passenger to leave the planes.

Some passengers reportedly complained that the ASF officials had misbehaved with them for resisting to the 'quick implementation' of the PIA's instructions.

The sources said the luggage of both flights was mixed up and the passengers faced great inconvenience to retrieve them. The passengers later gathered at the (airport) lounge and shouted slogans against the PIA high-ups for mismanaging the flight schedule.

Similarly, the passengers of Toronto-bound flight also expressed their anger for six hours’ delay in the departure.

While explaining reasons, a PIA spokesman told Dawn by telephone that bad weather caused the delay and postponement of the flights. He said during the same hours of operations, eight other flights of different airlines, including Emirates, Thai International and Aero Asia, were also to take off with a limited number of immigration counters.

PPI adds: Lahore and its adjoining areas are in the grip of fog due to which the severity of cold has increased.

According to the Met office, the weather will remain same in the open places for another week.

There was thin traffic on roads in the most of areas of Punjab.

In other provinces, several areas are in the grip of sever fog and the visibility is less.

Weather officials said that Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujaranwala, Sialkot, Jhelum, Sargodha and DG Khan were in the grip of heavy fog and the situation would prevail in the next week.