Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) finally resumed flights to Europe on Friday, after a four-and-a-half-year ban was lifted by EU regulators.
A flight of the state-owned airline, plagued by a history of deadly crashes and a pilot licence scandal, took off from Islamabad at around 12:40pm heading for Paris, AFP journalists saw, becoming the only carrier to offer a direct route to and from the European Union.
“This is the first time I am travelling with PIA,” said passenger Shumaila Rana, a 38-year-old school teacher living in Germany. “I’m nervous and I’m having a lot of anxiety, but I’m hoping it’s gonna be a good flight.”
Debt-ridden PIA was banned in June 2020 from flying to the European Union, United Kingdom and the United States, a month after one of its Airbus A-320s plunged into Karachi’s Model Colony, killing nearly 100 people.
The disaster was attributed to human error by the pilots and air traffic control, and was followed by allegations that nearly a third of the licences for its pilots were fake or dubious.
In 2016, a PIA plane burst into flames after one of its two turboprop engines failed during a flight from Chitral to Islamabad, killing more than 40 people.
