Pakistan International Airlines bolsters UK network with Birmingham resumption and more London flights

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is slowly returning to its historic frequencies to the United Kingdom after being forced to suspend all such flights in 2020. Leveraging additional wet-leased Boeing 787 capacity sourced from Norse Atlantic Airways, the airline will be resuming services to Birmingham this winter, and will boost services to London Heathrow.

The 787s will free up PIA’s 777-200 capacity currently deployed on Manchester and London Heathrow flights, allowing it to deploy its own planes on the Islamabad-Birmingham route. The new route will operate thrice-weekly, catering to a primarily Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) traffic. There are presently no nonstop flights between the two cities.

PIA’s Birmingham flights will hurt Emirates and Turkish Airlines

The Pakistani flag carrier will be returning to Birmingham from 1 December with a Boeing 777-200ER from Islamabad. The carrier will fly the link thrice-weekly, complementing its UK flights to Manchester and London Heathrow. The outbound flight from Pakistan will operate during the day, while the return service is overnight.

Though PIA was banned from operating to the UK in 2020, the carrier last served Birmingham through a wet-leased Airbus A330-200 aircraft from Jordan Aviation. This was short-lived and infrequent, with the last such flight departing in November 2022.

Pre-COVID, PIA flew the route thrice-weekly as well. Aviation analyst Behramjee Ghadially notes that in 2019 it achieved a 74% market share despite the low frequency. Since then, Emirates and Turkish Airlines have taken the top spots, controlling 41% and 29% of the market respectively. Ghadially argues that given the type of market being served – VFR traffic including many families – the nonstop flights will be more highly valued.

It may easily return to its previous share, therefore, despite criticism over the last few years surrounding the carrier’s onboard service quality.

London Heathrow will also see more of PIA this winter

It will use Boeing 787s wet-leased from Norse Atlantic for its flights to London and Manchester this winter. Overall PIA service to Heathrow will increase to 7x weekly with flights to both Islamabad and Lahore.

From the end of the month, PIA will replace its 777-200ER on flights between Islamabad and Heathrow with a Norse Atlantic 787-9, five times per week (up from the current three). Lahore to London flights will also operate with the Norse aircraft, twice-weekly (up from the current one-weekly).

Manchester services will also use the 787s, with four weekly flights from Islamabad and one weekly from Lahore.

Since 2022, Pakistan International Airlines has leased out its Heathrow slots to other carriers pending its approval to return to UK and EU skies. Turkish Airlines took most of them, and will be returning 14 slot pairs this winter to facilitate PIA’s Heathrow expansion.

PIA suspended its own flights the UK in June 2020 due to a tragic crash on an Airbus A320 killing nearly 100 people. The carrier also suffered heavily after it emerged that nearly a third of all pilots in Pakistan held fake licences or had cheated in exams.

The UK and EU aviation authorities subsequently banned the carrier from operating in their airspace. This ban was lifted in 2025. PIA resumed flights to both last year, with Paris in January 2025 and London in March this year.