I am a Canadian permanent resident with a valid Pakistani passport, and faced an absurd situation at the Islamabad airport while on my way back to Toronto on Oct 1.
I purchased a confirmed online ticket for Islamabad-Muscat-Dammam-Amsterdam sector. I reached the airport three-and-a-half hours before the scheduled flight (PK-291) departure. After a little while, when I approached the PIA counter for check-in, the airline staff refused to board me, saying I had a short transit time at Muscat airport. It was two hours, actually.
I asked them how the airline could issue a ticket if it had not verified its internal agreement with another airline. I also knew for sure that the minimum connecting time at Muscat airport is one hour. I told them that I had flown around the world with similar and even slightly shorter transit times as well. But the PIA staff were not willing to pay heed to anything that I was saying.
I told them that I had no checked luggage and that I already had online boarding passes from KLM for Muscat and Amsterdam, which would help save time at Muscat. But the staff still would not let me board the plane. I sent emails to the ticketing website’s customer service while at the airport, but no one responded. I contacted the KLM helpline, but was asked to get the matter sorted out with PIA.
As it happened, I stayed at the airport for an additional 32 hours to catch the next available flight to Canada via Qatar since I could not go back to my village. In total, I was at airport for almost 36 hours. I told the PIA staff that I had to be in Canada on Monday morning and would miss out on an important matter in Toronto if I did not travel. As I said, the staff would just not listen to me. All they wanted was for me to listen to them.
A passenger or customer should not have to bear the consequences of gross incompetence of airlines or websites selling tickets. This is highly irresponsible on the part of all parties involved.
In short, for me it was a disastrous experience with PIA. Never have I felt so humiliated and disrespected as a traveller. It was the first time I had ever been refused by an airline to board. I have not mentioned a single word of the mental agony and stress under which I subse-quently travelled. That is a separate story.
Will PIA like to provide me any valid reason for my ‘ineligibility’ to board the flight to Muscat? Will anybody like to tell me where I am at fault? If not, who is?
RAJA FAISAL ABBAS
ONTARIO, CANADA
