A Pakistani International flight, Boeing 777 flying from Karachi to Medina, Saudi Arabia on Jan 20th carried 416 passengers against the capacity of 409. The airline is now investigating how this was allowed to happen despite all the seats being full.
According to reports, the staff had issued handwritten boarding passes to the extra flyers. In such an over-crowded situation the flight could’ve had problems in an emergency situation and also not have enough oxygen masks. Thus seriously breaching air safety.
Anwer Adil, Flight captain said he only got to know about this after the take-off and couldn’t go back as that would mean dumping fuel which was not in the interest of the airline. “After take-off when I came out of (the) cockpit, (the senior purser) informed me that there were some extra people who (had been) boarded by the traffic staff. I also noticed some people were those who were categorically refused jump seats by me at the check in counter before the flight,” he was quoted
According to reports, PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani has said that “the matter is under investigation and appropriate action will be taken once responsibility is fixed”.
In December, all 48 people on board a PIA plane were killed when it crashed in the north of the country.