Pakistan International Airlines will resume direct flights to London after a six-year gap, operating four weekly services from Islamabad starting March 29, the national flag carrier announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The flights, expected to depart from Terminal 4 at London Heathrow Airport, mark PIA’s return to its first and most popular international route following the suspension of direct operations in July 2020.<\/p>\n
PIA is already operating three weekly flights to Manchester, which resumed on October 25 after a five-year hiatus. The Manchester service initially started with two weekly flights before being increased to three, operating on Saturdays and Tuesdays, the national flag carrier announced on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The airline’s return to UK operations follows formal approval from the UK’s Department for Transport in September, allowing PIA to operate as a Third Country Operator for both passenger and cargo flights.<\/p>\n
The department issued PIA a five-year ACC3 certification covering flight security and cargo operations, renewing confidence in the airline’s safety protocols and operational standards.<\/p>\n
The ban was initially enforced in July 2020 by both UK and European aviation authorities after a major scandal revealed that dozens of Pakistani pilots were operating with fake licences.<\/p>\n
Read:\u00a0PIA to be run by Arif Habib-led consortium by April 2026<\/p>\n
The then-aviation minister, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, admitted to the issue following the tragic crash of a PIA Airbus A-320 in Karachi, which claimed nearly 100 lives.<\/p>\n
The fallout from the scandal resulted in bans across the UK, European Union, and United States, costing the loss-making airline approximately Rs40 billion ($144 million) annually in lost revenue. Despite the ongoing ban in the UK, PIA marked a small milestone in January 2025 by resuming direct flights to Europe with a flight from Islamabad to Paris.<\/p>\n
The expanded UK operations come as PIA undergoes privatisation. A consortium headed by the Arif Habib Corporation emerged as the top bidder on December 24 in a live-televised auction for a 75% stake in the carrier, offering Rs135 billion \u2014 surpassing the government’s reserve price of Rs100 billion. The national airline is expected to be run by a new owner from April 2026<\/p>\n
The successful bid marks a turnaround from last year’s failed sale attempt and a breakthrough for the government’s long-delayed privatisation of the national carrier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan International Airlines will resume direct flights to London after a six-year gap, operating four weekly services from Islamabad starting March 29, the national flag carrier announced on Tuesday. The flights, expected to depart from Terminal 4 at London Heathrow Airport, mark PIA’s return to its first and most popular international route following the suspension …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}