Pakistan Worldwide Airways (PIA) has lastly made its return to the European Union, over 4 years after the airline was banned. The corporate is actually making headlines for its return, however not for the explanation you’d anticipate…
Pakistan Worldwide Airways resumes European Union flights
In July 2020, the European Union Air Security Company (EASA) banned Pakistan Worldwide Airways from flying to European Union locations.
The ban got here following an Airbus A320 crash from the airline in Could 2020, which killed practically 100 folks. It was blamed totally on pilot error. What in the end contributed to the airline to be banned from the European Union was a press release by the nation’s Minister for Aviation, who claimed that 262 of the 860 airline pilots within the nation had “faux” licenses, together with 150 pilots on the nationwide service.
Clearly that was extremely alarming, and is what prompted the European Union to take motion. Officers in Pakistan later referred to as this assertion irresponsible, suggesting that there could have as a substitute simply been some testing discrepancies.
After a ban of effectively over 4 years, the airline lastly 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), utilizing Boeing 777s.
The inaugural flight was absolutely booked, with over 300 passengers, in response to the airline. Extra European Union flights are anticipated to be added quickly, and the nation’s Prime Minister hopes that this resumption will assist enhance the nationwide service’s picture.
The airline claims that not having the ability to fly to the European Union prompted the airline to lose practically $150 million in income per yr. Nonetheless, given the service’s large losses (the airline has misplaced $3.6 billion over the previous couple of a long time), there’s a serious distinction between misplaced income and misplaced earnings. Odds are that this ban helped PIA’s backside line.
Pakistan Worldwide Airways’ Paris return goes viral
If any publicity is nice publicity, then the social media crew at Pakistan Worldwide Airways deserves an enormous increase. To rejoice the return to the European Union, the airline posted an image on social media, with the caption “Paris, We’re Coming Right this moment.” The image exhibits a PIA 777 flying straight for the Eiffel Tower.
The image has now been considered effectively over 16 million instances on Twitter/X alone, and extra on different platforms.
I’m unsure whether or not to suppose the particular person behind this advert is a genius or a whole fool. Speak about quite a lot of publicity on a budget. On the identical time, having a aircraft flying straight for a landmark isn’t precisely an excellent look. Couldn’t they’ve pointed the plane within the different course, and perhaps put it a bit increased up? It most likely wouldn’t have gotten the identical stage of consideration then, although…
This jogs my memory of the 1979 advert that the airline had, the place it confirmed a aircraft flying straight for the World Commerce Heart. After all this was effectively earlier than the horrible assaults of September 11, 2001, although nonetheless, one has to marvel what they had been pondering…
Backside line
Pakistan Worldwide Airways was banned from the European Union in July 2020, and has lastly made its comeback, as of January 2025. The airline has resumed flights between Islamabad and Paris, and plans so as to add extra locations quickly.
The airline has gotten greater than its fair proportion of publicity from this service resumption, because of a poorly thought out social media publish (or perhaps very well thought out publish, relying on the way you have a look at it).
What do you make of PIA’s return to the European Union, and social media publish?
