The schedule of domestic flights will remain disturbed for the next 10 days, as at least 20 domestic flights will be cancelled due to recurrent mechanical problems in the fleet of Avion de Transport Regional (ATR) aircraft owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).
Well-placed sources told Pakistan Today that from September 21 (Wednesday) to 30, the national flag carrier due to change of engines in ATR aircraft AP-BHJ will have to cancel around 20 domestic flights, including PK-536 from Karachi to Sukkur on Wednesday; PK-537 from Sukkur to Karachi; PK-550 from Karachi to Multan; and PK-551 from Multan to Karachi.
On Thursday (today), the flights facing cancellation are PK-532 from Karachi to Mohenjodaro, PK-533 from Mohenjodaro to Karachi, PK-521 and 522 from Karachi to Turbat and from Dalbandin to Karachi, respectively.
Two flights on September 24, PK-507 and PK-508 scheduled to take-off from Karachi to Gwadar and Turbat to Quetta and Pani Pur to Karachi are to be cancelled.
On September 25, four flights are facing cancellation that includes PK-534 scheduled from Karachi to Sukkur, PK-535 from Sukkur to Karachi, PK-688 from Karachi to Quetta-Zhob to Dera Ismail Khan to Peshawar to Islamabad and PK-563 from Islamabad to Karachi.
Similarly, flights number PK-540 and 541 scheduled from Karachi to Mohenjodaro and from Sukkur to Karachi are to be cancelled on 26 September.
Likewise, three flights, PK-532 from Karachi to Mohenjodaro; PK-533 from Mohenjodaro to Karachi; and PK-523 and 524 from Karachi to Gwadar to Quetta to Turbat and from Gwadar to Karachi, may be called off on September 29.
The sources said that fixing one engine in an ATR aircraft takes two to three days that resultantly disturbs the whole cycle of flight schedules.
It is worth mentioning that three ATR aircrafts of PIA had malfunctioned a few weeks ago, where two of them had faulty engines; whereas, the third aircraft had to make an emergency landing at Zhob airport as its engine caught fire.
When approached for comments, the official spokesperson of the PIA said due to heavy passenger loads at certain stations, the airline faces an issue of availability of aircrafts sometimes; therefore, the flights are merged as an alternative to passengers.
Don’t write it if u don’t know exactly what happened, at zhob the aircraft AP-BHJ was on a flight pia688 n was already on ground, that was the time when it’s left engine got fire, most probable cause can be an ingestion of foreign object, when a foreign object is ingested, even a new engine will catch fire.
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