In August 2019, I stood on the tarmac at Manchester Airport, my hand pressed against the cold glass as Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK702 carried my mother’s body ( accompanied by my family) home to Dera Ismail Khan via Islamabad.
She had tragically passed suddenly in Leeds, her heart giving out without warning. Within hours, PIA’s staff, kind, efficient, and compassionate, had arranged her repatriation.
First class service, no issues, no delays, just dignity.
That service, that connection, was my family’s lifeline, which I can never forget.
Then, in 2020, it vanished. For five years, our community grieved in limbo. Yesterday, as PIA returned to Manchester, I felt relief and rage.
Relief for families like mine, who can once again bury loved ones in ancestral soil. Rage that it took so long, cost so much, and that no one has answered for it.
When PIA resumed UK flights, I emailed mainstream British media, getting only a three-line mention. Contrast this with 2020, when global headlines screamed “Pakistan’s Fake Pilots!”
In June 2020, Pakistan’s then-Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan (PTI Govt.) stood in Parliament and declared that 262 of Pakistan’s 860 commercial pilots held “dubious licences”. Global regulators acted swiftly. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) banned PIA within 72 hours,
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) suspended flights to Heathrow, Manchester, and Birmingham.
Overnight, 1.6 million British Pakistanis lost their most affordable, culturally vital link to home.
The financial toll was staggering:
* £1.2 billion in direct losses over five years-enough to build 650 schools in my beloved Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
* £200-220 million annually evaporated from PIA’s European revenue streams.
* Indirect losses in tourism, cargo, and diaspora spending are incalculable.
But numbers don’t capture the human anguish.
As a Leeds city councillor until 2024, I consoled families who stored bodies for weeks, some even crowdfunding £4,500 flights via Doha or Istanbul. I met elderly parents stranded here, too frail for 20-hour layovers, who died without seeing their villages again. In 2022, a constituent in Holbeck buried her husband in Leeds after failing to raise funds. “He wanted to lie beside his mother and father in Mirpur,” she told me. “She betrayed him.”
Last week, my 84-year-old father-who visits us every year after hearing the news about PIA flights resumption tore up his Emirates ticket and asked me to book PIA’s direct Manchester-Islamabad flight for November. “I’ll fly my own country’s airline or not at all,” he insisted, eyes gleaming with a mix of pride, pain and defiance.
For him, this isn’t just about convenience. It’s about sovereignty, identity, and the faint hope that Pakistan and PIA can reclaim their dignity.
His choice mirrors our community’s stubborn loyalty. But why did we endure five years of £1200 plus per person fares, bankrupting funerals, and isolated elders?
Because a minister’s reckless statement went unchallenged. Because Ghulam Sarwar Khan prioritised political theatre over due process. Because no senior official, not CAA chiefs, not PIA’s board, has faced consequences for a scandal that bled Pakistan dry.
PIA’s collapse was decades in the making, Decades of Rot, Billions in Waste
* Staff bloat: 14,000 employees for just 30 aircraft-467 staff per plane (Emirates operates with 392 per plane despite a 10 times larger fleet).
* Ghost employees: A 2017 audit found 227 “staff” who didn’t exist, including a flight attendant who died in 2005 but remained on the payroll until 2017.
* Chronic delays: Only 43% of flights arrived on time pre-ban (IATA, 2019). Post-reforms, this inched to 58%, still unfortunately the worst in Asia.
Yet let’s also remember, PIA’s pioneers trained Emirates’ first pilots, designed Saudia’s crew protocols, and mentored Gulf Air’s engineers. Our pilots still staff global airlines, proof that Pakistan’s decline wasn’t inevitable. It was engineered by greed and apathy.
Our demand: Investigate, Prosecute, Rebuild
To PM Pakistan Shahbaz Sharif & Field Marshall Asim Munir, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff: This is not about politics. It’s about justice for 240 million people.
1. Investigate Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s 2020 claims: Why weren’t licences verified before his statement? Why were 50 pilots later cleared by courts?
2. Audit the $1.3 billion loss: Trace every rupee. Prosecute mismanagement and all those responsible.
3. Overhaul PIA’s governance: End political appointments. Hire aviation experts, not cronies.
We’ve upheld our duty. UK Pakistanis sent over £3 billion in remittances last year, funds that kept Pakistan afloat. Now, we demand accountability. Not as outsiders, but as sons and daughters who refuse to let our homeland crumble.
When PIA resumed UK flights, I emailed mainstream British media, getting only a three-line mention. Contrast this with 2020, when global headlines screamed “Pakistan’s Fake Pilots!”
Our grief, measured in missed funerals, broken families, and lonely deaths, was reduced to a footnote.
This erasure is familiar. As a community leader and a councillor, I battled for years to amplify diaspora voices in UK media. Our stories are “too niche,” our joy “too foreign.”
Yet when airlines like Emirates profit from our displacement, where is the scrutiny?
Hope Amid the Wreckage
Next month, in November, as my father boards a PIA plane, I’ll carry two photographs, one of my mother and father smiling in a PIA flight from 2012 and another of Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s 2020 press conference.
One image captures what Pakistan can be while the other, what it must never be again.
To PIA’s crews, engineers, and unsung reformers, thank you. Your late-night audits, retraining drills, and diplomatic lobbying have given us a flicker of hope. To EASA and the UK CAA: Thank you for second chances.
But hear this, Pakistan!
We will not be placated by one flight.
We demand:
* Transparency: Publish all safety audits and financial reports. Let us trust with proof.
* Punctuality: Match Emirates’ 85% on-time rate, not languish at 58%.
* Dignity: Restore free repatriation for bodies, expand it to stranded elders.
Final Words for our motherland, for our Pakistan
Five years ago, they took our skies. Today, we reclaim them, not with blind patriotism, but with resolve. My father will board that flight with pride because, like me, he still believes in Pakistan’s soul. Not the Pakistan of corrupt ministers and phantom employees, but the Pakistan that carried my mother home with grace.
The Pakistan that trained the world’s best pilots. The Pakistan that can and must RISE again.
To MY diaspora Pakistanis: Celebrate this victory, but never forget the cost. To Pakistan’s leaders: Honour our remittances with reforms. To the world: See our resilience and respect our National Flag carrier, Pakistan International Airlines, like your own.
The writer is a freelance columnist.