PIA clarification

The report titled "Passengers protest, ill planning by PIA management" is more based on speculation than the actual facts. It is pertinent to mention here that the European airports, especially, London (Heathrow Airport), Paris (Charles de Gaulle) and Germany (Frankfurt Airport) had suspended their operations due to heavy snowfall in the region during last few days.
The runways and taxiways of the airports were covered with thick layers of snow, making it impossible for different airlines to operate. The spokesman of PIA stated that the flight PK757 of 18th December 2010, headed for London, Heathrow Airport was diverted to Cologne, Germany due to bad weather condition at Heathrow Airport.
"This was an unavoidable situation which was beyond airline's control, as PIA has no set-up of Ground Handling at Cologne. Airline could not provide any immediate assistance to its valued passengers, as airline had arranged Ground Handling staff for Cologne from Frankfurt Station," said spokesman.
He added that the passengers of PK 757 who have EU passports were given hotel accommodation immediately. While 135 passengers who had Pakistani passports were given accommodation after the PIA staff from Frankfurt arrived at Cologne and did the legal proceedings for these stranded passengers. Afterwards they were also shifted to the local hotel.
It is quoted in the press report that "PK 785 London-Islamabad was diverted to Paris on 18th December 2010 also become a pain for its passengers when some of them were given hotel while many were left stranded," which is a misleading statement. PIA has a proper Ground Handling setup in Paris and all the passengers were provided accommodation in the hotel.
The press report stated that PK 701 Islamabad-Manchester "secretly planned to have a technical stopover at Istanbul to change cockpit crew" is a false statement. This flight was planned to operate Islamabad-Manchester via Istanbul due to strong head winds in winter and to cater the duty time limitations, an additional captain was planned for this flight to Manchester via Istanbul, PIA spokesman said.
However, after take off from Islamabad, flight was diverted to Karachi because the airplane had a technical requirement, which was addressed in Karachi and afterwards plane left for Istanbul. The captain, Farrukh Shafiq, who had to operate the flight from Istanbul to Manchester, reported sick at the last moment. Therefore crew was provided rest in Istanbul according to the safety regulations and the flight operated to Manchester with same crew.
It is also worth mentioning that METAR is issued after every hour giving the actual condition of weather at the airports. The fact of the matter is that the airline is not responsible for these disruptions as Heathrow Airport along with other airports of the region stopped accepting arrivals due to snow on runways and taxiways.-PR