PIA staff failing PIA

Dear  Editor

This is with reference to the letter-- �PIA staff failing PIA. I am sending this letter to bring this issue into the notice of all Chitralis who the ultimate beneficiaries of PIA direct flight from Islamabad to Chitral in addition to the existing Peshawar to Chitral flights. My personal experience of PIA�s staff strategy to prove the Islamabad-Chitral flight to be nothing more than a costly deal and a loss to PIA confirms the concern raised by Sher Wali Khan Sahib in his letter. I phoned PIA universal access phone number and requested for seats on June 5th, flight to Chitral but I was told that there is not even a single seat available till July 2nd . I then went to a travel agent and ask for tickets on request (chance). It was difficult to find seats on chance even, I was however, lucky to have three tickets on request (chance). On June 5th�s morning I took my family members to the airport and all three of them plus an infant who had to travel, got a chance on the flight. The flight was then cancelled due to bad weather in Chitral and when the passengers came out I found that in fact there were only 13 passengers traveling on that flight and only 7 of them were holding confirm tickets and the rest were on request including 4 of my family members. I then asked the PIA staff members at Islamabad Airport what was the logic behind denying tickets to travels on this flight but had no answer at all. As a matter of fact it seems that there is a really conspiracy working against this new development which is trying to prove this flight to be a financial burden on PIA and justify it to be worthless. In view of the importance of this flight and its future existence, I would like to request the District Government Chitral and the elected representatives of Chitral in the National and Provincial Assemblies to take it seriously and talk to the competent authorities of PIA before it is too late. The reason, I am requesting the local, provincial and national level elected representatives at this stage, is that this is their duty as leaders to fulfill and protect the rights of the people of Chitral.


With regards

Ehsan-ul-Haq
Islamabad.