Pakistan International Airlines resumes flights to Europe after 4 years: Why it stopped

However, PIA is still barred from flying to the UK and operating certain flights in the US. What’s behind these restrictions and how could their removal help the carrier? We explain.

Why was PIA barred from flying to Europe?

In July 2020, the EASA suspended PIA’s license to fly in the EU for six months. This happened after then Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said a large number of active pilots were suspected of acquiring their licenses through “dubious” means. It included reports of cheating in the examinations that aspiring pilots have to take.

He claimed these pilots were inducted before 2018, which is when then-incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party came to power in Pakistan. The Imran Khan-led government ordered inquiries against 262 pilots from multiple airlines, including 141 from PIA. The scandal emerged in the wake of a plane crash in 2020 in Karachi, where almost all passengers – nearly 100 people – aboard a PIA plane died.

Also in July 2020, the US Department of Transportation revoked permission for PIA to conduct charter flights to the US, citing Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concerns over the pilot certifications. FAA revised its assessment of PIA on its compliance with the safety standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a technical UN agency for aviation under the United Nations.

It gave it a Category 2 rating, meaning it was not allowed to initiate new service to the US and be restricted to current levels of existing service to the country. An FAA notice from July 15, 2020, said, “Currently, no airlines operate regularly scheduled flights between Pakistan and the United States.”

In November last year, Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Ali Pervaiz Malik said in a post on X that EASA had lifted the suspension on PIA flights to Europe. This was “made possible due to complete focus of Aviation Ministry to strengthen PCAA (Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority) and ensuring safety oversight in line with ICAO (standards,” he said. He added that steps had also been taken to strengthen the PCAA.

How does the resumption of flights help PIA?

For many years, the Pakistan government has intended to privatise the airline. According to a Nikkei Asia report, it had a total debt of $3 billion as of May 2024. Previous attempts at holding auctions have led to protests by PIA employees. However, with Pakistan’s worsening economic condition in the last few years, the government has strengthened its efforts to sell PIA and other national assets.

“From power plants and utilities, to a women-focused bank and even a hotel in New York, assets owned by Pakistan are scheduled to be offloaded as the country seeks a multi-billion dollar package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail out an economy that has crashed into a high-debt, low-growth crisis,” the Nikkei report said. The IMF loan has been conditional, linked to the state selling off loss-making enterprises.

The country’s larger economic woes have also impacted PIA. In 2023, for example, dozens of domestic flights were cancelled when it could not afford plane fuel, with fuel prices rising to a historic high.

In this scenario, key routes to countries in the West will help boost the airline’s money-making prospects before an auction. Current Aviation Minister Khawaja Asif had called the restoration of flights to Europe a “major value addition”.

Have these issues always plagued PIA?

According to Agence France-Presse, PIA “has long been accused of being bloated and poorly run — hobbled by unpaid bills, a poor safety record and regulatory issues” even as it became Pakistan’s major airline.

In 1946, Mohammad Ali Jinnah instructed industrialist MA Ispahani to set up a national airline on a priority basis. With East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) and West Pakistan set to be more than 2,000 km apart, “a swift and efficient mode of transport was imperative”, the PIA website says.

Initially registered as a pilot project in Calcutta (now Kolkata) as Orient Airways Ltd. in 1946, its operations began in June 1947. “The designated route for Orient Airways was Calcutta-Akyab-Rangoon, which also happened to be the first post-war international sector to be flown by an airline registered in India,” it said. Subsequently, it transferred its base to Pakistan.

The Government of Pakistan decided to form a state-owned airline and invited Orient Airways to merge with it, creating a new airline named PIA in 1955.