When I returned from Islamabad, after a week, I got information that a truck with luggage was about to set off.
KARACHI: My daughter is volunteering for two weeks in a school in Shigar — an hour’s drive from Skardu. I decided it provided a perfect opportunity for me to see this beautiful part of Pakistan. She left on June 13, and I followed two days later as getting a seat on the PIA flight from Islamabad to Skardu is a whole different tale of woe, to be told another time.
Anyway, I reached two days later only to find that my daughter’s luggage had not arrived. In the next one week, she called the airline call centre every day. She was told it would come on the next flight, but it never did. But one time, she was told the truth — that it would probably be sent along with the luggage of others (at Skardu airport, the airline official showed me a register filled with a long list of baggage tag numbers of luggage that had not arrived with the passengers with dates as far back as June 3) by road through a truck and that, too, only after there was a truckload full of luggage to be sent.
When I returned from Islamabad, after a week, I got information that a truck loaded with luggage was about to set off for Skardu. After an hour’s search, I finally found my daughter’s bag (0214 PK218568) and had it taken off because there was no point in sending it as she was returning in the next few days, and they could well cross each other.
The staff seemed to have no clue whether the passengers (whose luggage they were sending to Skardu) were still there to receive them. How would they chase and find where the passengers were (many return by road as they cannot play the airline’s endless waiting game; many trek further up)? What would happen to the lost luggage? Would the management at Skardu then hire a truck and send the unclaimed luggage back to Islamabad? There seemed to be little thought put to the plan. And what was the guarantee that if my daughter received her luggage, it will not be off-loaded again on her return.
The staff did not apologise for the inconvenience (you may have noticed the pilots have stopped saying the cursory words of apology when there is a delay in the flight. They regaularly make passengers wait inside the aircraft without turning on the air conditioning in this suffocating heat and at times, without water — one cannot help but feel terribly sorry for the women flight attendants in their thick wintry uniforms).
If common sense prevailed within the offices, the airline staff would simply tell passengers boarding the Skardu flight that they would only be allowed hand luggage, or that they will not allow more than 10 to 12 kilogrammes of weight.
This letter comes with no elevated hopes of things getting any better. The sense that the management simply does not care anymore for anything is all pervading. Just visit the head office of the airline at Sidco Centre and you will know what I mean! The air conditioning is not working, and there are no fans in the waiting area. Often the computer systems are ‘down’ and staff is missing. If you insist you want to see the duty manager, you are told he is holding a rather ‘longish’ briefing with his staff over morning tea!
This letter is more to caution those who are thinking of travelling by air to Skardu. You may go through the same ordeal as it was not a one-off experience: this is a regular occurrence! Travel light and never, ever get your luggage checked in. And if you must, keep some essentials in your hand carry, just in case! And no perishables to be checked in either!
Zofeen T Ibrahim
Published in The Express Tribune, June 24th, 2014.
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