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Pakistan International Airlines leaves coffins behind at JFK airport
Struggling Pakistan International Airlines’ final flight from the US didn’t exactly go to plan.
PIA has been forced to issue an apology after two coffins containing dead bodies were inadvertently left behind at New York’s JFK airport.
The carrier has blamed ground handling workers for the oversight.
The bodies were due to be loaded onto the airline’s final flight from New York to Lahore.
The coffins were left in the correct loading bay but were then forgotten.
PIA ‘regrets the inconvenience caused due to negligence on part of the airline’s ground handling agency and expresses its sympathies with the family members of the deceased persons,’ it said in a statement.
The airline said it will pay all costs to repatriate the bodies.
PIA chairman Musharraf Rasool Cyan has ordered an inquiry into the mishap.
The airline has been plagued by financial losses for years and a number of high profile scandals.
These include discoveries of illicit drugs been shipped on flights, often masterminded by airline workers and earlier this year it flew a plane overloaded with passengers, with seven forced to stand in the aisle for the three-hour flight to Saudi Arabia.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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