In transit: A brief history of PIA’s in-flight music
From the moment you board the plane till the seatbelt sign comes off, your journey has a soundtrack.
Often punctuated by the collective war cry of all the toddlers on board, some stock sounds include the flight attendant’s polite request to stow away your dasti samaan, fellow passengers saying their goodbyes on speaker phone, and the flurry of newspapers.
However, if you’re lucky, you can hear a glimmer of music adding yet another acoustic layer to your in-flight experience.
Consider, for a moment, that the sonic space taken up by in-flight music serves as a means to establish a specific mood, to elicit a specific emotion.
I remember a ‘PIA sound’ from my childhood just as distinctly as the smell of biryani being warmed up 35,000 feet in the air.
However, in recent years, with debilitating speaker systems and an increase of smartphones and personal listening devices, this sound no longer makes its way to passengers as they prepare to take to the skies.
As of January 2019, Pakistan International Airways replaced its usual “soft” boarding music collection of with a version of Qaseeda Burda Sharif on outbound flights to Jeddah and Madina. This may seem out of place, but it fits well with PIA’s musical track record.