Pakistan International Airways eyes US expansion following pending FAA review
December 16, 2024
The potential for Pakistan International Airways (PIA) to resume services to the US comes at an opportune time for the debt-ridden national airline amid ongoing privatisation endeavours. This proposed FAA reinstatement of US permissions after seven years follows a similar move by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which lifted a four-year ban in November 2024.
Following the upcoming visit of a Federal Aviation Administration team to Pakistan in February or March 2025, the country’s safety rating is set to be upgraded from FAA Category 2 to Category 1; enabling Pakistan’s air carriers to retore services to the United States.
The Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) has already signed a MoU with the FAA and is preparing to clear relevant fee payments, an agreement which lays the groundwork for addressing financial issues and achieving compliance.
On 15 July 2020, the FAA downgraded Pakistan’s rating to Category 2, with the administration explaining it did “not comply with ICAO safety standards under the FAA’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) programme”. (Under the Category 2 rating, air carriers are not allowed to initiate new services to the US or carry the code of US carriers on any flights).
At that time, no airline from Pakistan was operating regular scheduled services between Pakistan and the US. PIA suspended its US routes in 2017 “due to losses reported by the airline,” explained the FAA, with the airline having been operating a once-weekly 777 flight from Karachi to New York via Lahore and Manchester.
EASA lifted its own suspension on PIA flights to Europe last month, imposed in 2020 following safety and pilot licensing concerns in the wake of a fatal crash in Karachi. Last week, the airline opened booking for its first newly-reinstated European destination (Paris), which will run twice weekly. PIA is also allegedly looking at a return to the UK.
In an interview with the Business Recorder, PCAA director general Nadir Shafi Dar explained that the “FAA will follow similar criteria to the recent European Union assessment, which yielded positive results” – although cautioned his optimism with the reality that such expansion would require significant investment in infrastructure, including new aircraft and simulator facilities for pilot training”.
