A flight operated by state-run Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) took off for Paris from Islamabad on Friday morning as the carrier resumed direct flights to Europe following the lifting of a European Union ban.
The EU blocked PIA in 2020 after one of its Airbus A-320s crashed in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, killing 97 people.
Concerns about the airline’s safety were heightened when the aviation minister at the time, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, said that nearly a third of Pakistani pilots had cheated on their exams.
The ban, which was lifted in November, caused the airline, which employs almost 7,000 people, to lose nearly €146 million ($150 million) a year in revenue, officials have said.
‘Irresponsible statement’
Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif inaugurated the twice-a-week flights to Paris.
He said that PIA would soon extend its flights to take in other European countries.
In a speech, he said the European Union Aviation Safety Agency had imposed the ban because of what he called an “irresponsible statement” by the former aviation minister.
Fully booked flight
Friday’s flight to Paris was booked out, with the plane carrying more than 300 passengers, according to the airline.
PIA, which was created in 1955 when a loss-making commercial airline was nationalized, flies to a number of cities inside Pakistan, as well as to the Gulf and Southeast Asia.
In 2016, a PIA plane caught on fire after one of its engines failed during a flight from the remote north to Islamabad, with 40 people killed in the accident.
The Pakistani government is currently seeking to privatize the airline once more.
tj/ (AFP, AP)
