PIA resumes relief flights to UK from today

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is resuming its special relief flights to the United Kingdom (UK) from Sunday (today). The decision to resume flights to the UK was based on the demand of the expatriates intending to travel to and from Pakistan to reunite with their loved ones.

However, due to the regulated inbound flow of travelers set forth by the government consequent to the COVID-19 pandemic, PIA, despite its earnest desire, could not fly back the desired number of diaspora to Pakistan, which had huge impact on the commercial viability of the flights as well.

The new plans are to operate daily flights from Islamabad and Lahore to London, Manchester and Birmingham.

Meanwhile, necessary permissions have been sought by the PIA management from the government to operate these flights while fulfilling all health and safety requirements set by respective agencies of both the countries, a PIA spokesman said.

This decision was taken after rounds of discussions between PIA CEO and UK High Commissioner to Pakistan, held under the directives of Minister of Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan.

The minister has directed PIA management to plan and execute these operations on priority basis to address concerns of both stranded Pakistanis in the UK and stranded British citizens in Pakistan.

The spokesman said that demand was high and being the national flag carrier, the airline had to step forward in the time of the need and added that a large number of people were affected due to COVID 19 consequential flight cancellations and were eagerly awaiting the resumption of operations.

With limited number of capacity available, seats will be sold on first-come-first-served basis, he maintained.

PIA Contact Centre would be contacting the people who have already submitted re-confirmation requests, only after which customers are requested to approach PIA offices if required. For fresh bookings, passengers can visit PIA offices or PIA website.

The spokesperson further added that it was standard demand of all the stranded passengers to reduce the fares on humanitarian basis, hence PIA being the national flag carrier of Pakistan, and despite not meeting operational costs, has offered a special one-way fare of Rs110,000 or GBP 525.

However he has strongly requested everyone to immediately rush for the bookings as flights have already been opened in the system for that matter.