Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) finally resumed flights to Europe on Friday, after a four-and-a-half-year ban was lifted by EU regulators.
A flight of the state-owned airline – plagued by a history of deadly crashes and a pilot licence scandal – took off from Islamabad at around 12:40pm heading for Paris, AFP journalists saw, becoming the only carrier to offer a direct route to and from the European Union.
“This is the first time I am travelling with PIA,” said passenger Shumaila Rana, a 38-year-old school teacher living in Germany. “I’m nervous and I’m having a lot of anxiety, but I’m hoping it’s gonna be a good flight.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulated the nation on the flight’s departure.
In a statement, he said the restoration of PIA flights to Europe would facilitate overseas Pakistanis as they would benefit from the direct flights.
He noted that due to the suspension of flights, the national carrier had to incur huge losses worth billions of dollars and also had to lose its reputation.
“The incumbent government has restored the identity of the national airlines,” the prime minister said, adding that PIA would now move towards new development and progress.
In this regard, the prime minister added that the role of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Aviation Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the relevant departments and their officers and staff also deserved appreciation.
Debt-ridden PIA was banned in June 2020 from flying to the European Union, United Kingdom and the United States, a month after one of its Airbus A-320s plunged into Karachi’s Model Colony, killing nearly 100 people.
The disaster was attributed to human error by the pilots and air traffic control, and was followed by allegations that nearly a third of the licences for its pilots were fake or dubious.
In 2016, a PIA plane burst into flames after one of its two turboprop engines failed during a flight from Chitral to Islamabad, killing more than 40 people.
On November 29, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency announced it had lifted the ban, however, it remains barred from flying in the UK and the United States. At the time, it said it had “re-established sufficient confidence” in the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority’s oversight capabilities. The airline flies to multiple cities inside Pakistan, including the mountainous north, as well as to the Gulf and Southeast Asia. PIA, which employs 7,000 people, has long been accused of being bloated and poorly run – hobbled by unpaid bills, a poor safety record and regulatory issues.
Pakistan’s government has said it is committed to privatising the debt-ridden airline and has been scrambling to find a buyer.
It has been decided that the losses of the national flag carrier will be transferred to the Holding Company, making PIA free of liabilities and attractive and lucrative for investors who had been otherwise shy in acquiring the national flag carrier due to the losses. Late last year, a deal fell through after a potential buyer reportedly offered a fraction of the asking price.
The government hopes the opening of European routes, which officials expect will be followed by a similar announcement by the UK later this year, will boost its selling potential.
Aviation Minister Khawaja Asif had called the restoration of flights to Europe a “major value addition” that would make the airline more attractive to potential buyers. PIA posted losses of $270 million in 2023, according to local media. Its liabilities were nearly $3 billion, about five times the total worth of its assets. In the same year, amid a national economic crisis, dozens of domestic flights were cancelled when it could not afford fuel for its planes. PIA came into being in 1955 when the government nationalised a loss-making commercial airline and enjoyed rapid growth until the 1990s.