The world’s most overstaffed airline has lost track of passengers that may be stranded anywhere from New York to Beijing. Workers at Pakistan International Airlines Corp. (PIA) have been on strike over the past week against the government’s proposed plan to privatize the airline, prompting the national carrier to cancel more than 200 flights. Each of its 15,000 full-time employees earns the airline $585 a year, the lowest among 72 global peers tracked by Bloomberg—making it the world’s most overstaffed by this measure, Livemint reported. “We have no data available on how many and where passengers with confirmed PIA tickets are waiting, because the entire system is shut, servers are down and no booking is being done,” spokesman Danyal Gilani said by phone. The airline flies regularly to overseas destinations, including Toronto, Birmingham and Riyadh. PIA has made efforts to find all of its stranded passengers. It has held talks with Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines to fly passengers stranded in Europe, the US and Canada, Gilani said. Saudi Arabian Airlines is helping fly back 2,000 passengers from the kingdom.
