Finally after the due process of safety checks and required clearances, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the flag carrier of Pakistan, have now been allowed to fly to Europe. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency had banned PIA from flying to Europe in 2020 after a plain of PIA crashed inside Pakistan, resulting deaths of nearly 100 people. Also around the same time inside the National Assembly of Pakistan, someone had claimed that around 40% of the pilots in PIA have fake licenses. This turn of events and bad publicity had resulted in PIA being banned to fly to Europe.
Good news, again is that finally PIA have been allowed to resume flights to Europe. This development just came forward in last month of November 2024. However, however responding to this positive development PIA was quick to bring forward an action plan to resume flights.
As a result PIA is resuming flights to Europe with first flight to Paris, France on Jan 10, 2025. PIA have decided that from Jan 10, 2025, two flights from Pakistan will go to Paris in each week. These flights will take of from the capital city Islamabad. For the Jan 10 flight, the bookings will open from Jan 9, 2024.
In a post on social media platform X (formally twitter) PIA plans to offer “extremely attractive fares” and “convenient most schedule”. The plain to be used for Jan 10, 2025 flight will be a Boing 777 aircraft.
From over a decade PIA, as an organization is losing money continuously, every year. As it is a public listed company, Govt of Pakistan and people have been carrying the weight of its losses. Recently, govt even failed to privatize it, as on last day most of bidders backed off and only bidder who came forward with the bid, came up with the bid which was too low according the govt officials.
Now, this new development and resumption of flights to Europe is certainly a ray of hope in utter darkness. However, it will be hard to determine if it will be enough to turnover PIA from a loss making organization to a profitable one, time will tell the whole story indeed.