✈️ Window-Seat Diaries · Multan Airport

Up Close with the Big Bird: PIA Boeing 777 Boarding at Multan Airport

A widebody wakes up beside our Flydubai 737 — and from the terminal window, every minute of it is pure theatre.

There is a moment every plane-spotter knows by heart: you are settled in your own aircraft, coffee nowhere in sight, eyes pressed to the window — and then a giant pulls into view. That morning at Multan Airport, sitting on our Flydubai 737, the giant was a PIA Boeing 777: stairs wheeled up to its doors, passengers climbing aboard, ground crews swarming around it like stagehands before a show. It had a presence no narrowbody can match, and for a few glorious minutes it stole the whole apron.

PIA Boeing 777 boarding via mobile stairs at Multan Airport, ground crew and service vehicles around the aircraft in morning light — Morning turnaround in full swing: the Boeing 777 takes on passengers through mobile stairs while the ramp crew readies it for departure. Illustration generated for this article.

🎥 Watch the Big Bird Board

Watch: the PIA Boeing 777 boarding at Multan Airport, caught from our Flydubai 737 window.

What our camera caught

Today's video is a short, sweet window-seat clip — just nine seconds — but it captures the exact second a widebody turns from a distant shape into something alive. The PIA Boeing 777 sits at the Multan Airport terminal, boarding under way via mobile stairs, passengers filing up to the door while ground crews work around the fuselage. You can see the choreography in miniature: stairs in position, crew at the hold doors, vehicles moving with that unhurried purpose ramp workers carry.

The caption I wrote for the reel says it plainly: the 777 has that presence no narrowbody can match. Every time I see one on the ramp, it steals the show. If you have ever boarded or even just watched a 777 from a terminal window, you already know the feeling — and if you have not, this clip is the next best thing.

Why the 777 steals every show

The Boeing 777 is one of the most successful widebody designs ever built, and it wears its scale openly. Stand next to one and the first thing you notice is the nose — tall, broad, with a cockpit window line that seems to look back at you. The fuselage is wide enough for up to ten seats across in economy, and the wingspan stretches wider than the aircraft is long on most variants.

Then there are the engines. The 777's powerplants are among the largest and most powerful ever hung on a commercial airliner — each one nearly as wide as a narrowbody fuselage. From the window of our 737 they sat like silver barrels under the wing, idling with that low, patient rumble widebodies have at rest. This is why the type became the backbone of long-haul fleets around the world, and why Pakistan International Airlines has leaned on it for decades for its longest routes.

But numbers only go so far. What makes the 777 a spotter's favorite is simpler: it looks like it means business. Everything about it — the raked winglets on newer versions, the six-wheel main landing gear bogies, the way the tail rises over the terminal — reads as long-distance machinery. A narrowbody is a commuter; a 777 is an expedition.

The choreography you can watch from your window

One reason I never get tired of filming from the window is that a turnaround is a complete little play, and the 777's is the grandest production on the apron. Watch for the acts:

Stairs and doors. At airports like Multan, many stands use mobile stairs instead of airbridges. The stairs roll up, the forward doors open, and the queue of passengers begins — the most human moment in all of aviation, tiny figures climbing toward a giant.
The baggage train. Dollies loaded with suitcases shuttle back and forth to the hold doors while loaders stack them inside. A 777 carries a small mountain of luggage; watching the dollies line up gives you a real sense of the scale.
Fuel and service. The bowser connects under the wing while catering trucks rise to the rear doors. Three different vehicles, three different jobs, all happening at once without anyone getting in anyone else's way.
The pushback tug. If you stay at the window long enough, the best part arrives: the tug connects to the nose gear, the beacon lights start flashing red, and the whole giant is eased backwards off the stand. Even on video, a 777 pushback is oddly thrilling.

All of this was happening around the PIA 777 that morning while our own aircraft waited its turn. Two stories unfolding on one apron — that is what makes airport windows better than television.

Window-seat view from an airliner at Multan Airport: the wingtip of a Boeing 737 in the foreground and a PIA Boeing 777 parked on the busy apron beyond — The window-seat spotter's view: our wing in the foreground, the 777 working its turnaround across the apron. Illustration generated for this article.

Multan Airport: a plane-spotter's open-air theatre

Multan International Airport does not get the same attention as Karachi or Lahore, but for a spotter it has a quiet superpower: variety. On any given morning the apron mixes domestic narrowbodies, Gulf carriers heading to and from the Middle East, and — on the right day — a PIA widebody turning for a long-haul departure. The terminal's glass gives generous views across the stands, and the morning light in southern Punjab does the rest, gilding every fuselage it touches.

What I love about spotting here is the pacing. The big hubs are constant motion, almost overwhelming. Multan breathes: aircraft arrive, turn, and leave in distinct acts, and between them the apron goes still enough to really look. You notice things you would miss at a busier airport — the way heat shimmer rises off a taxiway, the precise ballet of a single pushback, the sound of a 777's engines spooling with nobody else's noise to compete with.

Spotter's note: the 777 in our clip is parked at the terminal with boarding stairs, which tells you something useful — this is a turnaround at a remote or terminal stand rather than an airbridge gate. Those stands give the best photographs: unobstructed views, low angles, and none of the glass reflections you fight at a jet bridge window.

Window-seat plane spotting, done right

You do not need a camera worth a fortune or access to the ramp to spot well. Everything in today's clip was shot through an ordinary passenger window. A few habits make the difference:

🪟 Pick your sideOn departure mornings at Multan, the terminal-side window faces the stands. Ask at check-in if you can sit on the side that looks at the apron — crews hear this request more often than you would think.

📱 Kill the reflectionsPress the phone lens flat against the window, cup your hand around it, and switch the flash off. Cabin lights reflecting in the glass ruin more shots than dirty windows do.

⏱️ Arrive at the window earlyThe best ramp action happens before pushback. Board early, claim your window, and stay there — the turnaround's final act is the one everyone misses by reaching for the overhead bin.

✈️ Learn the silhouettesA 777's six-wheel bogies and tall stance give it away instantly; the A320 family sits lower with four-wheel bogies. Once you know the shapes, every taxiway becomes a quiz.

And the simplest tip of all, the one the caption asks outright: who else loves plane-spotting from the terminal window? Because the truth is, some of us plan entire journeys around it. The destination matters — Dubai was waiting for us that day — but the apron is where the journey actually begins.

The big bird boards. The little bird waits. 🛫

That PIA 777 left Multan for its own horizon that morning, and a little while later so did we. Two aircraft, two stories, one shared sunrise on the apron. Watch the nine-second clip above, and the next time a widebody parks beside your aircraft, stay at the window — it is always worth it.

Explore With Sarim