Pakistan’s national flag carrier resumes UK flights after 5-year ban over fake pilot licence scandal

ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: State-run Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Saturday resumed its flight operations to the UK after a five-year suspension following a ban imposed over a fake pilot licence scandal. The “first flight from Islamabad to Manchester since July 2020 departed with 284 passengers” on board in the presence of Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the PIA said in a statement. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the UK Civil Aviation Authority had banned PIA flights in 2020 after a tragic air crash in Karachi that left around 100 passengers dead and subsequent revelations by then aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan that a large number of Pakistani pilots held fake licences. While EASA lifted the ban in November last year, the UK removed Pakistan fr