A passenger scheduled to fly from Lahore to Karachi on a domestic AirSial flight mistakenly boarded an international flight to Jeddah on July 7.

Malik Shahzain had been staying in Lahore for nearly a month to manage factory-related matters.

"I am Malik Shahzain. I had been staying in Lahore for around one month and was looking after some factory work. I booked a ticket on AirSial [for Karachi]. My flight was on 7th July at 10 AM."

He stated that after arriving at the airport, he received his boarding pass and proceeded to his plane. At the same time, an international flight bound for Jeddah, carrying Umrah pilgrims, was also boarding.

"When I arrived at the airport, I collected my boarding pass. Another flight was boarding, headed to Jeddah carrying Umrah pilgrims. I mistakenly boarded that plane."

According to Shahzain, he realised something was wrong two hours into the flight when the plane still had not landed.

 

"Two hours later, I began to wonder why the plane wasn’t landing. That’s when I found out I had boarded the wrong flight."

He was still inside the plane when a team arrived and informed him that it had landed in Jeddah and would take him back to Lahore.

According to a media report, the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) stated that senior officials had taken notice of the lapse and had written letters to the civil aviation regulator and the station manager.

“In the letter, the civil aviation regulator has been requested to impose a heavy fine on the airline that is guilty of negligence,” PAA spokesman Saifullah said.

The PAA statement, however, did not clarify how the passenger cleared immigration at the Lahore airport before boarding the Jeddah-bound flight.

Shahzain had originally booked AirSial flight PF146 from Lahore to Karachi on July 7 at 9:45 PM, according to his boarding pass. However, after returning from Jeddah, he eventually boarded flight PF144 to Karachi from Lahore on July 8 at 3:45 AM.