Expatriates decry high airfares, ticket renewal fee

PESHAWAR: Pakistani expatriates returning to their workplaces in Saudi Arabia have accused the airlines of fleecing poor passengers by charging up to 400 US dollars for renewal of their tickets.

Azizur Rehman, a resident of Peshawar, told this scribe that when the operation started he was told to pay Rs70,000 extra to get a ticket for the flight to Saudi Arabia. However, a PIA official in Peshawar said that it was the ticket renewal fee that was being charged by every airline. The PIA had set a 100-dollar fee for flight change in the beginning, which was raised to 150 dollars and then to 250 dollars and finally 400 dollars, he added. He maintained that the ticket prices were around Rs121,000.

“The prices are high because these are special flights,” he said., adding, the prices fluctuated slightly in response to the exchange rates of dirham and dollar. He said the prices were expected to drop if scheduled flights resume operations.

“The prices of tickets were around Rs40,000 before the coronavirus pandemic outbreak,” he said, adding that the prices were high in the peak season. “The quota is allocated for the PIA office,” he went on to add.

“We have provided tickets to all passengers who had contacted the office. We handled 400-500 passengers on a daily basis,” the PIA official in Peshawar said. The situation, he said, was under control now and passengers could get tickets easily. The Saudi government had extended the expiry date of visa till Sept 30 and that had caused the problem as everybody was trying to get ticket as early as possible, he added. “We have handled more than 7,000 passengers in the last 15 days,” he said when told that PIA management had collected a huge fee from passengers during the crisis.