ISLAMABAD, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ordered the private airline company Shaheen Air International (SAI) to pay monetary compensation to the passengers who were left stranded in China for over a week.
According to the local media reports, a three-member bench of the country's top court resumed the hearing of its suo-motu notice on the matter on Tuesday.
Over 214 Pakistanis were left stranded at Guangzhou airport in China due to a payment dispute between the Shaheen Air International and Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which is the country's aviation regulator.
These passengers were brought back to Lahore through a Shaheen Air flight on Monday. They got stuck in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou on July 29 after the SAI abruptly canceled its flight in the wake of a payment dispute with the aviation regulator. These passengers reportedly faced severe difficulties and some of them even fell sick.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan had ordered the SAI to not only bring back the stranded Pakistani passengers but also compensate them fairly.
The SAI's top executive blamed the CAA for the disaster and said that he would be able to respond after taking up the matter with the company's finance department. He further informed the apex court that the SAI will bear the passengers' expenses.
The Supreme Court ordered the SAI top official to inform the court till August 20 about how much money the airline company would pay to the affected passengers in compensation.