Airmale From Botswana, joined Sep 2004, 368 posts, RR: 2 Posted (11 years 9 months 1 week 5 days 14 hours ago) and read 989 times:
Im returning to KHI after a month long stay in Islamabad. Flying PK309 which leaves ISB at 7 pm arriving KHI at approximately 9 pm, according to the schedule the aircraft is an A300 or A310 but due to the summer loads its going to be a 747 dont know wether its the 200 or 300, lets see, I hope its the latter, will try and do a trip report
Airmale From Botswana, joined Sep 2004, 368 posts, RR: 2 Reply 5, posted (11 years 9 months 1 week 5 days ago) and read 912 times:
Well, here I am back in Karachi, the weather is horribly humid, as for the trip report, there isnt much to say, to put it breifly, luckily I got to be on the 747-300 and not the 200, while boarding I happened to notice part of the wing attached to fuselage that seemed to have been glued together with some adhesive, the aircraft interior was S-H-A-B-B-Y, the carpeting is so worn out its unbelieveable, it actually had bald patches, the seat covers are as bad, everything seems to be faded, I couldnt make out wether the seats were Blue or Green or Green turned Blue or that they were printed or plain, turned out they were embossed, sticking tape was in abundence holding parts on the interior in place, including the over head bins and lighting fixtures, the PTVs were not working on many seats including the entire row I was in, seats 15 A B & C all near the window I was in 15 B, the screen size though is much better than the ealier versions that were introduced in Emirates A300/310 fleet. Horrible computer animated film showed pre flight safety procedures, amateur grainy, scratched footage of PIA aircraft taking off from Karachi and other airports was shown at the start of the flight on the main screen through a projector and on the PTVs for the breif moment they were functional in my row, nothing else was shown except the route map throughout the flight. The food was like homemade left overs from yesterday re heated in a microwave, oily rice (but not biryani or pulao) and a bland chicken curry, dessert was "Kheer" a traditional Indo-Pak sweet dish which was OK, Coffee was not bad either but we in this part of the world do not know what real Coffee is like so Nescafe works for us, the cabin crew especially the men were old and obnoxious the type who are just holding onto their jobs and not letting go, not one of the them was attractive, this guy in our section actually got it from one passenger for trying to be extra smart and bossy, the way he was instructing people to their seats was like he was employed at a fish market loading a truck the one in my section resembled a dark Ray Romano from the TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond", the female crew were some what better but again not as good as they should be one in another section actually sported a hairdo from the 1960s and it had definitely nothing to do with the retro style invasion of the past few years, I took a walk to the lavatory at the end of the aircraft and really got to appreciate the spaciousness of a 747 which I do every time I fly them, literally like walking in a lounge, but at the same time I will say an air plane is definitely not an "Airliner" its more like and "Airbus" no pun intended, the amount we economy class passengers have to pay to put up with cramped bus like seating, bad service, and shabby interiors is sad, the flight itself went quite smoothly, flying time was 1 hour and 35 minutes and it arrived on time, at every stage thoughts of crashes entered my mind, the American DC-10 at take off, the TWA 747 at climb, the Saudia 747, even the Mount Everst tragedy of 1996 when we reached 29000 feet, the China Airlines A300 at landing and the Saudia Tristar fire while parked and waiting to get off as for some reason the doors were not opened for 10 minutes, even after the aircrfat was connected to the gate surprisingly the passengers were very patient and remained seated right upto the time the aircraft came to a complete halt, something very unusual for Pakistanis, both take off and landing were remarkably smooth, my ears did not pop or get closed during both which was strange, there were some unusual announcemnts made like for the cabin windows to remain open during take off? why? and some others regarding emergency situations that I cant recall, the flight was non-smoking which was great and ofcourse it had its fair share of screaming kids, and extra carry on luggage which seems to be the norm on every PIA flight, I was surprised though to find ground staff at Islamabad airport very helpful and courteous, I guess it wasnt as bad compared with the 24 hour bus trip that i took from Karachi to Islamabad, now that was an experience
Conair From United Kingdom, joined Nov 2000, 196 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (11 years 9 months 1 week 5 days ago) and read 902 times:
I thought these aircraft had a new upgraded cabin refit when PIA acquired them about 3 years ago? according to a recent article on PIA in Airliner World.
Airmale From Botswana, joined Sep 2004, 368 posts, RR: 2 Reply 9, posted (11 years 9 months 1 week 4 days 14 hours ago) and read 879 times:
I doubt it if they'll replace the 747s in the near future, things seem to be quite bad for PIA, four of their 742's are grounded since the past two years or more, the 743's leased from Cathay were a temporary measure which have now become a permanent part of the fleet, they did try to lease four 777s also from CX but that failed due to PKs bad financial position, before that they lost a great opportunity to get three brand new 744s from Boeing which were cancelled by Philippine Airlines at a much less then market price, but due to some sinister plan of the then Chairman in connivance with the then Prime Minister of Pakistan the chance was lost, also the airline has just been given 20 billion rupees by teh govt. to keep it afloat so new aircraft are perhaps the last thing on their agenda, according to another thread herer PIA have temporarily suspended some European and Asian routes served by their A310 fleet for shortage of a/c and want of spares due to which some are grounded
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