Maryam Nawaz's maid denied upgrade to Business class

Maryam Nawaz allegedly wanted her maid to be seated in business class with her

KARACHI: The prime minister's family was faced with an embarrassing situation on board a flight to London on Tuesday when the captain of the aircraft refused to allow one of their maids to be bumped up to Business Class from Economy.

The story first surfaced on Wednesday in some segments of the media, but could not be corroborated. Officials also came out to immediately deny the story.

However, according to information gathered by The Express Tribune, the incident did indeed transpire on the Lahore-London Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight on Tuesday.

According to details, a maid was travelling along with Maryum Nawaz, daughter of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and her family to London. The maid's ticket was purchased for Economy Class - but, once on board the aircraft, the premier's daughter had the flight crew bump up her up to Business.

Following directions, the PIA cabin crew seated the woman in Business Class. The person sitting next to the maid was a senior Pakistani bureaucrat -- and the official protested (initially not knowing that the maid worked for the premier's family's entourage) and approached the aircraft's captain to complain when the cabin crew did not move the woman back to Economy. Ironically, the senior bureaucrat himself had been upgraded from Economy to Business.

Intially, it was reported that the PIA cabin crew had protested the move -- but that was not the case, according to fresh details. When the matter reached him, the captain disallowed the move, despite it being the premier's daughter. Interestingly, the senior bureaucrat was not sent back to Economy.

When initially approached to comment on the incident on Wednesday, PIA spokesperson Mashhood Tajwar told The Express Tribune that no such incident had taken place.

The incident follows close on the heels of the dramatic expulsion of two parliamentarians from a Karachi-Islamabad flight by angry passengers. The passengers had faced a long delay and believed that the delay was due to the flight being made to wait for the VIPs' arrival.

Footage of the incident was uploaded by some of the passengers and went viral on social media.

PIA and the parliamentarians both held that the delay was due to a technical fault.