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Pakistan airline flies with extra passengers standing in aisles
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A Pakistan International Airlines' Boeing 777 on the tarmac at Terminal 4 at JFK International Airport in New York City, United States. (Shutterstock/Leonard Zhukovsky)
Pakistan International Airlines reportedly carried an extra seven passengers on one of its flights last month.
The passengers boarded the three-hour flight from Karachi in Pakistan to Medina, Saudi Arabia, on Jan. 20, and later had to stand in the aisles throughout the journey, according to The Times of India.
The Boeing 777 aircraft used by the airline is said to have a 409-person seating capacity, however, the PK-743 flight carried a total of 416 passengers.
(Read also: Low-cost Norwegian Air promises bargain flights to Europe)
The excess passengers reportedly boarded the flight using handwritten, not computer-generated, boarding passes issued by the airline’s ground traffic staff.
The flight captain Anwer Adil told Dawn Newspaper that he was not informed about the extra passengers until take-off.
Pakistan International Airlines admitted to BBC News that the flight had indeed carried extra passengers. The company's spokesman Danyal Gilani said that the issue was currently under investigation and appropriate action would be taken once responsibility was ascertained.
Aviation experts said that the airline had violated safety regulations, as in during an emergency the extra passengers would not have access to oxygen and might cause a blockage during evacuation. (kes)
