Right after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency suspended all flights of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the US did the same. Regardless of the high risks associated with flying in PIA, Noel Philips, a UK based travel geek reporter, and content creator decided to take a shot at it and now he is in love with Islamabad and Pakistanis.
Philips took the PIA flight to travel to Islamabad and shared his entire experience throughout the flight in a video he recorded. In the beginning, before getting onto the plane, the vlogger was quite surprised to see so many people with so much excess baggage.
Once he gets onto the plane, he sees most of the people on board sitting in the wrong seats. The chaos ensued when the passengers began shouting at flight attendants who were running around with bits of paper in the hands.
Moreover, the plane which was supposed to take off about 10 minutes ago, delayed as passengers continued to fight over the seats. As Philips says, “Utter chaos.”
The actual PIA flight experience
According to the travel expert, the seats of the plane were quite wobbly. In addition to this, he also captured a guy in his video who had a plastered leg but got a seat with an unworkable recline. The poor guy had to spend the entire night keeping his leg straight on a metal box from the galley.
Moving on, as Philips decided to push his seat back a little, it turned out to be well but as he says in the video, “Not quite the smoothest operation”. The vlogger believes that even though PIA got rid of all the unlicensed pilots, it still was not enough for the European safety association and FAA.
“I have got a private license on me which is in my bag up top. So if they need me, I am here,” Philips cracks a joke. Anyhow, soon it was lunchtime and the crew came with meal choices. Turns out, the vlogger made the mistake of asking for a beer. However, had orange juice with chicken curry and got chicken tikka masala which he really liked.
While filming the interior, Philips says, “The aircraft is not too bad. It is a little bit shabby in places. It is showing its age but it is like 15 years old so it is kind of to be expected, I guess.”
Uh oh! Here come the cons
Sharing the cons, Philips shares how it was a bad decision to push his seat back. “I soon started to regret that decision when I saw what was down the side of the seat. I was shocked to see garbage under the seats after I pushed my seat back,” he added.
Then came another con as he got woken up by the ‘unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke’. In the video, he says, “Smokers are strictly prohibited from smoking onboard PIA flights. I mean there is signup and everything and I am sure that not a single member of the passenger or crew would ever want to bend those rules. Not on PIA surely.”
Hospitality of Pakistan
Capturing the beauty of Pakistan, the travel expert was surprised to see the greenery of Pakistan. In addition to this, the UK geek after his PIA flight, while travelling in a taxi which was taking him to his hotel in Islamabad, Philips shares how much he loves Islamabad and its beauty.
He says, “Islamabad is such an incredibly beautiful city and one I really hope to be going back to when I can stay a little bit longer and experience the wonderful Pakistani hospitality again. And of course, some more of those great curries.”
Well, it is to be noted that Pakistan is the world’s most hospitable country. At the end of his vlog, Philip shares how everybody he met, the entire crew, and everybody in Islamabad, as well as the airport “were just so nice and lovely”.
So it turns out that PIA is not that bad after all! Nonetheless, the fallout over the fake license scandal at PIA is growing. The United States also joined the European Union in banning the airline from its airspace.
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