The move comes just months after the EU lifted its own ban amid Pakistan\u2019s efforts to privatise national carrier PIA.<\/p>\n
Britain has lifted a five-year ban on Pakistani airlines, allowing them to apply to resume flights to and from the United Kingdom as Pakistan steps up efforts to privatise its beleaguered national carrier, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).<\/p>\n
The UK Air Safety Committee decided to lift the ban after aviation safety improvements in Pakistan, the British High Commission in Islamabad said on Wednesday, adding that decisions on delisting states and air carriers were made \u201cthrough an independent aviation safety process\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on this independent and technically-driven process, it has decided to remove Pakistan and its air carriers from the [UK Air Safety] List,\u201d the high commission said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The move comes after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency lifted a four-year ban on PIA, and the Pakistani state-owned carrier resumed flights to Europe in January.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the lifting of the ban as \u201can important milestone for the country\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lifting of the ban on Pakistani flights by the UK is a source of relief for Pakistanis residing in Britain,\u201d he added in a statement.<\/p>\n
Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said at a news conference on Wednesday that resuming all routes would improve PIA\u2019s value ahead of its privatisation and there were plans to restart flights to New York.<\/p>\n
Asif also said he attributed the ban to what he described as \u201cbaseless\u201d remarks made by former Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan. He blamed Khan\u2019s false statements and mismanagement during his tenure as aviation minister for the ban. \u201cIt was a national-level blunder,\u201d Asif said.<\/p>\n
PIA was barred from flying to the UK in June 2020, a month after one of its aircraft plunged into a Karachi street, killing 97 people.<\/p>\n
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. Pakistan launched an investigation to examine these claims.<\/p>\n
While several private Pakistani airlines operate domestically and on regional routes, primarily to the Middle East, PIA has historically been the only carrier to operate long-haul flights to Britain and the EU.<\/p>\n
PIA, which employs 7,000 people, has long been accused of being bloated and poorly run \u2013 hobbled by unpaid bills, a poor safety record and regulatory issues.<\/p>\n
PIA had previously estimated an annual revenue loss of about 40 billion rupees ($144m) due to the ban. The airline has long considered UK routes, including London, Manchester and Birmingham, among its most profitable and holds sought-after landing slots at London\u2019s Heathrow Airport that could become active again.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s government has said it is committed to privatising the debt-ridden airline and has been scrambling to find a buyer. It is hoping that recent reforms that led to the airline\u2019s first operating profit in 21 years, will help attract buyers under a broader International Monetary Fund-backed privatisation push.<\/p>\n
In 2024, a deal fell through after a potential buyer reportedly offered a fraction of the asking price.<\/p>\n
This month, Pakistan approved four groups to bid for a 51 to 100 percent stake in PIA. Final bids are expected later this year.<\/p>\n
PIA was established in 1955 when the government nationalised a loss-making commercial airline. It enjoyed rapid growth until the 1990s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The move comes just months after the EU lifted its own ban amid Pakistan\u2019s efforts to privatise national…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[521,1306,748,12633,2825,393,4884,12,1144,6026,712,1263,183,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-266788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-aviation","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-business-and-economy","13":"tag-debt","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-northern-ireland","18":"tag-pakistan","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-transport","21":"tag-travel","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114863329181224508","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}