something that's being ignored, there are three possibilities, and its' never PIA that it will prefer it let alone advertise aisle... It's about 2.30 hr flight from Karachi to Medina.

1. They are labors. and they can't miss the working day, they beg to fly in aisle

2. 99.9% is above, other than some religious pilgrims, who have tight schedule ...

3. PIA is dirt cheap for Karachi to Medina compared to ahem Emirates

And it wasn't as uncommon than one could think, until recent times, few decades ago, it was pretty regular thing for Karachi to Lahore (local flight ... 1 hr approx) ... as people have to meet certain time to perform a job .... and back then there were no local carrier compared to dozen of them now, and about 20+ KHI to LHE daily flights.

It's terrible, but chalking it up entirely to PIA is bit unfair...