Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has finally made its return to the European Union, over four years after the airline was banned. The company is certainly making headlines for its return, but not for the reason you’d expect…
In this post:
Pakistan International Airlines resumes European Union flights
In July 2020, the European Union Air Safety Agency (EASA) banned Pakistan International Airlines from flying to European Union destinations.
The ban came following an Airbus A320 crash from the airline in May 2020, which killed nearly 100 people. It was blamed primarily on pilot error. What ultimately contributed to the airline to be banned from the European Union was a statement by the country’s Minister for Aviation, who claimed that 262 of the 860 airline pilots in the country had “fake” licenses, including 150 pilots at the national carrier.
Obviously that was incredibly alarming, and is what caused the European Union to take action. Officials in Pakistan later called this statement irresponsible, suggesting that there may have instead just been some testing discrepancies.
After a ban of well over four years, the airline finally made its return to the European Union yesterday. As of January 10, 2025, the airline resumed twice weekly flights between Islamabad (ISB) and Paris (CDG), using Boeing 777s.
The inaugural flight was fully booked, with over 300 passengers, according to the airline. More European Union flights are expected to be added soon, and the country’s Prime Minister hopes that this resumption will help improve the national carrier’s image.
The airline claims that not being able to fly to the European Union caused the airline to lose nearly $150 million in revenue per year. However, given the carrier’s massive losses (the airline has lost $3.6 billion over the past couple of decades), there’s a major difference between lost revenue and lost profits. Odds are that this ban helped PIA’s bottom line.
Pakistan International Airlines’ Paris return goes viral
If any publicity is good publicity, then the social media team at Pakistan International Airlines deserves a big raise. To celebrate the return to the European Union, the airline posted a picture on social media, with the caption “Paris, We’re Coming Today.” The picture shows a PIA 777 flying straight for the Eiffel Tower.
The picture has now been viewed well over 16 million times on Twitter/X alone, and more on other platforms.
I’m not sure whether to think the person behind this ad is a genius or a complete idiot. Talk about a lot of publicity on the cheap. At the same time, having a plane flying straight for a landmark isn’t exactly a great look. Couldn’t they have pointed the aircraft in the other direction, and maybe put it a bit higher up? It probably wouldn’t have gotten the same level of attention then, though…
This reminds me of the 1979 ad that the airline had, where it showed a plane flying straight for the World Trade Center. Of course this was well before the horrible attacks of September 11, 2001, though still, one has to wonder what they were thinking…
Bottom line
Pakistan International Airlines was banned from the European Union in July 2020, and has finally made its comeback, as of January 2025. The airline has resumed flights between Islamabad and Paris, and plans to add more destinations soon.
The airline has gotten more than its fair share of publicity from this service resumption, thanks to a poorly thought out social media post (or maybe really well thought out post, depending on how you look at it).
What do you make of PIA’s return to the European Union, and social media post?
Did anything ever come out of the fake pilot license claims? I imagine the EU regulators must have pored over thousands and thousands of pages of documents before changing their minds.
Let's see how far Western racism and phobia goes.
Hypocrisy.
Eskimo, I am in town on Tuesday, 14th and Wednesday, 15th of January, staying at the Fairmont, DC …. treat you to a cocktail?
We can chat about “Western racism”, however, phobias might be more to your taste.
Should be fun, yes?
I was worried about incoming missles from Putin now we’ve got PIA projectiles flying about!….Great
Sorry, PIA – I'll stick to my "grounded" plans, thanks.
Ben please do some fact checking before you post. That 1979 ad is obviously fake when the first commercial Boeing 747 wasn’t delivered until 1980. Were you around in 1979 ? What do you think they were thinking ? Pakistanis are good people. Not a good article.
Correction 1970. But still racist undertone to this article
Racist? What?
Literally just pointing out a relevant item from PIA’s history (and mentioning it was obviously before the terror attack). It’s not like it’s insinuating any actual connection to 9/11.
It’s not welcoming nor inviting neither.
It's real. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pakistan-airline-ad-wtc/
Some serious irony here telling someone to fact check before posting. Thanks for the good laugh today.
I remember a KLM also had a WTC ad with a plane. But the real ad taking a bite out of the WTC twin towers was the one where Cookie Monster munches the top of the WTC towers.
Will they return to LHR next?
Or will it be CDG, then FCO or maybe OSL again?
PIA leased there slots to other airlines so it will be some time for the slot exchange returns.
I presume that the biggest population of Pakistani-origin people outside of Asia is still to be found in the UK. But the numbers in some EU countries seem to have risen a lot and been narrowing the gap over the last 15-20 years.
It seems like the US may have passed up even the UK at this point.
Canada may not be that far behind the UK.
Nope, as UK is still at 3x US and 4x Canada.
Interesting.
But PIA can’t really compete well against the GCC3 and TK. So the GCC3 and TK will act as a lid on the ability of PIA to bounce back.
PIA is still banned in the UK which is no longer part of the EU
To me it looks like the pilots spotted the Tower at the last second, have turned left in order to avoid crashing, and will just about get away with it.
I think it they did want it to go viral.
How could you possibly have an article about a PIA ad with a plane flying at a prominent structure without referencing their pre-9/11 ad featuring an oncoming plane reflected in the WTC.
Hard not to think the designer knew what they were doing.
@ Ace -- Good point, just added that to the post, thanks!
“ This reminds me…” should be “@Ace reminded me…”
Maybe someone can ask KSM if he has seen the 1979 advertisement. I doubt if it was ever seen by him then.
That ad in 1979 or around then wasn’t the only add in the 1970s and early 1980s with an airline showing a plane by the WTC.
Someone wanting to crash a commercial plane into a building on the ground? It was an idea that existed long before 9/11. It was back when sleazy Henry Kissinger was backing Pinochet to knock Allende out of power in Chile. And guess what day it was that Pinochet officially took power in Chile? September 11.
Pinochet had a real thing for planes — including supporting the dropping of political prisoners out of planes.
@GUWonder
Don't be surprised.
Ace is following the norm of this community.
OMAAT audience claim themselves to be open minded and liberal, but they'd go full scale aggressive if any Islamic existence does anything even slighty controversial.
Pure hypocrisy.
After 9/11, I saw how pseudo-liberal and pseudo-tolerant even so many “progressives” and “libertarians” were when it came to our Muslim compatriots. But it wasn’t a surprise to me. A scared people often are so scared that there is weak adherence (or no consistent adherence) to values when it comes to “the other”.
Muslims have been part of America since even before there was a United States and ever since. Nothing “other” about our Muslim compatriots.