LAHORE - The permission for operating the flight to Chicago via Barcelona is no favour since Barcelona has been cleared by TSA for detailed scrutiny surveillance with facility of body scans available if required. It seems that with the frequent security lapses that occur on various airports in Pakistan, this permission for direct flights seems a remote possibility. PIA plans to resume its flight to Chicago in June 2010 via Barcelona in the summer schedule that suspended two years ago. The airline has a fleet of 9 Boeing 777s and two Boeing 777-240LR. The LR version of Boeing 777-240 having a range of 17,446 KM and a capacity of 310 passengers was acquired for operating direct flights from any destination in Pakistan to USA and Canada. The first of 4 Boeing 777-240 was delivered in January 2004, when Ch Ahmed Saeed appointed by Gen Musharraf as Chairman PIA, signed a deal with Boeing in 2002. Ch Ahmed Saeed personally went to USA, accompanied by the present MD, who he had appointed as GM Traffic to take delivery of the first aircraft, which flew to Islamabad via Manchester. On arrival, he boasted that PIA would operate direct flights to USA, a dream that remained unfulfilled. Ahmed Saeed is the elder brother of the present Chairman PIA Ch Ahmed Mukhtar. PIA inducted the first of 2 Boeing 777-240 LR on 25 Feb 2006, which were especially bought for operating direct flights only. These two LR aircrafts operated direct flights to Canada and back. Even the first Boeing 777-240LR flew Everett to Islamabad via Manchester on 25 Feb with a lot of fanfare. The other 3 Boeing 777-240 ER have a range of 11,029 KM and seating capacity of 393. PIA operated its first non-stop flight from Toronto to Pakistan on 3rd Mach 2006 with Boeing 777-240LR. The national airline which was banned by the European Commission on 5 March 2007, from operating all its fleet, excluding the Boeing 777 fleet, from flying into Europe citing safety concerns, has till to date not been permitted to operate direct non-stop Trans-Atlantic flights to USA, even after the ban by EU was partially lifted in Nov 2007. The very purpose of Boeing 777-240LR induction stands defeated by the refusal for operating direct flights from Pakistan to any destination in USA, while PIA operates direct non-stop flights to Canada. This restriction has been imposed by Homeland Security and TSA which require PIA to operate via an acceptable transit stop in Europe, where a detailed scrutiny is made of all passengers once again. It is required by TSA that PIA would send total list of all passengers before departure from Pakistan. The list is directly sent to Homeland Security in Washington, who scrutinises every passenger. By the time the flight lands at the transit stopover in Europe for example Manchester, every passenger has been scrutinised and any suspected individual is offloaded at Manchester. The US security has no objection over operating direct flights on the way back from USA to Pakistan. The most recent security lapse was when a passenger, who happened to be a member of CAA governing Board of Directors, boarded a flight to London from Karachi, without any documentation, boarding card, scrutiny, immigration or his name on General Declaration, which had been sent to London before departure. PIA was saved when the flight returned back because of serious medical emergency involving a passenger and this violation was detected. Had this been detected at London, the airline would have been censured with serious repercussions. The whole security apparatus at Karachi failed to stop this passenger and PIA, CAA or the Ministry of Defense have taken no action against those involved in this gross case of indiscipline and negligence. The other recent incident involves the loading of a parcel as fake accompanied baggage on PK 721 at Karachi on a flight to New York via Lahore and Manchester.