The 2,600-Kilometer Mistake of a Passenger
Stories of passengers ending up on flights they didn’t intend to take are common, but an incident last week involving AirSial, a private airline from Pakistan, dramatically illustrates how this can unfold in unimaginable ways.
On the night of July 7, a Pakistani electrical engineer, Malik Shahzain, was supposed to fly from Lahore to Karachi with AirSial. He arrived at the airport on time, checked in his luggage for the correct flight, and headed to the boarding gate.
However, things took an unexpected turn and, instead of boarding a domestic flight of 1,020 kilometers, he ended up on an international flight of 3,650 kilometers to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
According to the passenger’s account, “there were two AirSial planes on the tarmac, one going to Karachi and the other to Jeddah,” and “the staff, without proper verification, put me on the international flight, and I only realized it after two hours in the air, when we didn’t land.”
Upon arrival in Jeddah, immigration officers interrogated Malik “for hours,” as he did not have his passport with him. Eventually, they believed his account — that he had truly been put on the wrong flight — and authorities instructed the airline to put him on the next flight back to Pakistan, as reported by our affiliated media, AEROIN.
However, Malik’s ordeal didn’t end there. He was placed on a return flight to Lahore, his original departure point, but airline staff told him he would need to arrange his own ticket to Karachi. “I went through a 15-hour odyssey, ended up in Jeddah, and had to endure hours of questioning,” Malik complained, visibly frustrated. To make matters worse, his luggage was sent to Karachi as originally planned.
The Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority is investigating the incident, with one official stating, “a passenger boarding the wrong flight by mistake can happen, but we’ve never encountered a case where a domestic passenger ended up on an international flight.”
What makes this incident even more notable is the series of failures that had to occur. First, the man was directed to the wrong plane without boarding pass verification.
Then, he sat in an unassigned seat, or if there was duplication, staff failed to follow proper procedures.
Moreover, it’s hard to believe he didn’t notice during boarding that the destination was Saudi Arabia; one would expect a crew announcement about the destination and flight duration, or even conversations with fellow passengers.
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