SINGAPORE, 12 December 2024: Pakistan International Airlines will resume its Paris service on 10 January 2025, with twice-weekly flights from Islamabad after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) lifted an EU-wide ban in place since 2020.
PIA announced its decision to resume flights to Paris in a statement on its Facebook account: “We are thrilled to announce that EASA has officially lifted the ban on Pakistan International Airlines, which is a significant milestone enabling the airline to resume flights to Europe.”
First reported by Reuters on 6 December, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and Britain retracted a ban on Pakistan’s national flag carrier imposed in 2020 due to safety concerns following an air crash in Karachi.
The EU aviation regulator withdrew PIA’s permission to operate in the region after Pakistan began probing a scandal over the validity of pilots’ licences in the aftermath of a plane crash that killed 97 people.
Initially, PIA will fly to Paris every Friday and Saturday. PIA said in a press statement that flights will later increase based on passenger demand.
The airline will deploy a Boeing 777-200 with 320 seats on the Islamabad-Paris route. The roundtrip fare starts at USD981, quoted by PIA’s website (Skyscanner search).
Flight schedule
Flight PK749 departs Islamabad (ISB) at 1130 and arrives in Paris (CDG) at 1555.
Flight PK750 departs Paris (CDG) at 1755 and arrives in Islamabad (ISB) at 0630 (plus a day)
“We have got approval for the first flight’s schedule we had filed,” PIA spokesperson Abdullah Hafeez Khan was quoted by Reuters, adding that the airline opened bookings on 9 December.
According to the Reuters report PIA will approach Britain’s Department for Transport (DfT) for permission to resume routes to the UK. Once cleared by the DfT, he added that London, Manchester, and Birmingham would be priority destinations. The EU and UK ban cost the loss-making airline 40 billion rupees (USD144 million) annually in revenue.
