Pak’s national carrier awaits clearance to resume flights to UK suspended since 2020

Karachi, Mar 26 (PTI) Pakistan’s national airlines is still awaiting clearance from the United Kingdom’s Department for Transport (DfT) authorities to resume flights to the UK, after being suspended in June 2020 over safety concerns.
     The UK authorities and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) had suspended permission to Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) to operate flights to EU countries, including the UK.
     “The airline is in constant touch with aviation authorities in the UK and also EASA but they have still not decided whether they would lift the flight ban on the airline,” a spokesperson for the airlines said.
     PIA’s flights to the UK were suspended after a deadly plane crash in Karachi in May 2020 killed 97 people and the then defence minister told parliament they were investigating the validity of pilots’ licenses.
     At that time, EASA had also suspended PIA flights to the European Union. But the ban on operating flights to EU countries was lifted last November and PIA resumed flights to Paris in January.
     The lifting of the ban on operating flights to EU countries was a prerequisite for approval from the UK DfT to allow PIA to resume its flights to the UK.
     The DfT and EASA recently held a meeting this week in which the ban on PIA to fly to the UK was on the agenda.
     Spokesperson Hafeez Khan said that a delegation of the UK’s DfT had visited the PIA’s headquarters and inspected the national flag carrier’s flight operations, flight safety and engineering last month and before that in February.
     Hafeez said PIA had so far not received any letter from the UK DfT on whether its status to operate flights to the UK had changed or remained the same.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)