Pakistan International Airlines returns to UK with flights to Manchester

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Manchester Airport (MAN) have confirmed that the Pakistani flag carrier will return to the United Kingdom by launching direct flights between Islamabad International Airport (ISB) and MAN on October 25, 2025.

In a statement, MAN said that PIA would launch a twice-weekly service between ISB and MAN starting October 25, with the direct connection benefiting “362,000 people from the region travel to the Pakistani capital, which makes it the most in-demand destination not served by [MAN].”

According to the airport, while MAN has the biggest route network out of any UK airport outside of London, passengers traveling to ISB had to either fly through London Heathrow Airport (LHR) on British Airways’ services or transfer in the Middle East.

Chris Woodroofe, the Managing Director of MAN, reiterated that hundreds of thousands of people from the airport’s catchment area travel to Pakistan annually, but have not had access to non-stop connections.

“This new route will be a real boost to the region’s Pakistani community and opens up an easy way for tourists to visit an exciting country.”

In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, the High Commission of Pakistan also confirmed PIA’s plans to resume services to MAN, adding that Mohammad Faisal, the High Commissioner of Pakistan to the UK, was grateful that the country’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued the Foreign Aircraft Operating Permit (FOP) to PIA on October 3.

“PIA has already received the Third Country Operator (TCO) approval for flight operations in the United Kingdom, and in the first phase, flight operations to Manchester will be resumed, after which Birmingham and London will be included.”

The Pakistani airline has already resumed flights from ISB to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) in January 2025, and from Lahore Allama Iqbal International Airport (LHE) to CDG in June 2025, after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) had removed its ban on PIA, as well as Airblue, from flying to the European Union (EU) in November 2024.

Cirium’s Diio Mi showed that before the airline was prohibited from flying to the EU and UK in June 2020, in June 2019, which was before the pandemic, PIA had 27 weekly departures from ISB, Karachi Jinnah International Airport (KHI), LHE, and Sialkot International Airport (SKT) to seven European destinations, including Birmingham Airport (BHX), London Heathrow Airport (LHR), and MAN.

PIA was banned from flying to the EU and UK following the crash of its Airbus A320ceo, registered as AP-BLD, in May 2020. In its final investigation report, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) of Pakistan, now the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI), concluded that the primary factors that resulted in the A320 first hitting the runway and then crashing into residential buildings were:

1. The aircraft’s gear-up landing that resulted in a loss of engine oil and lubrication when the engine and nacelles hit the runway and culminating in the engines’ failure during the go-around
2. Failure to adhere to standard operating procedures (SOPs) and air traffic control (ATC) instructions
3. Lack of communication between the pilots and controllers regarding the gear-up landing

Contributing factors were listed as the airline and regulators’ flight data analysis (FDA) oversight failures, fasting-related rules, and Crew Resource Management (CRM) problems during the flight.

What was not mentioned was that a month after the crash, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, the then-Federal Minister for Aviation, said that out of the 860 active pilots in Pakistan, 262 had used a third person to go through their exams, according to the BBC.

The disclosure resulted in EASA and the UK CAA, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), banning Pakistani airlines, including PIA, from offering flights to their respective jurisdictions.

In July 2020, the Pakistan Air Line Pilots’ Association (PALPA) shared a report, which said the Pakistani CAA concluded that the country’s pilots’ licenses are valid.

Unlike EASA or the UK CAA, the FAA has yet to lift Pakistan’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) category from 2 to 1, which would permit the country’s airlines to launch direct flights to the United States.

Cirium’s Diio Mi showed that PIA last served the US in 2017, when it offered a one-stop flight from LHE to New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) via MAN.