ISLAMABAD, Oct 27(Focus Pakistan) — A year after Britain let it back into UK skies, Pakistan International Airlines has carried 104,845 passengers through Manchester. The PIA Manchester flights milestone marks a significant comeback after a five-year ban. Its cargo holds tell a story of their own: for every tonne of freight flying to Pakistan, nearly 11 tonnes land in Britain.
That count runs from October 2025, when the Islamabad service opened, and takes in the Lahore flight PIA added in July, the airline said.
The freight split stands out. The two routes have moved 1,541 tonnes of cargo. Of that, 1,412 tonnes went into the UK and just 129 tonnes went the other way. Fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, medicines, clothing and fabrics made up the bulk of what Pakistan sent north.
PIA started small. Two flights a week was all it offered at first. Demand pushed that to four, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Lahore got its own weekly slot in July, on Wednesdays, so Manchester now sees five PIA departures a week.
That still falls short of the airline’s old footprint. Before the ban, PIA ran 21 weekly flights to Britain, nine of them to Manchester.
The comeback followed a long, bruising exile. Britain shut its skies to Pakistani airlines in July 2020. A PIA Airbus had crashed in Karachi weeks earlier, and the investigation that followed turned up problems with how the country licensed its pilots. It took until July 16, 2025, for the UK to take PIA off its Air Safety List.
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Then came Oct 25. A Boeing 777 left Islamabad with 273 people on board, 46 seats short of full. The first Lahore flight, PK-709, carried 325 passengers when it departed in July.
Manchester Airport Managing Director Chris Woodroofe said the direct links tie communities across northern England to Pakistan and support the region’s economy.
Two local MPs backed him. For Yasmin Qureshi, who sits for Bolton South and Walkden, the gain is practical: British Pakistanis can now get home more easily, and families have more freedom over when they visit. Afzal Khan, who represents Manchester Rusholme, put it in broader terms, calling the flights good for local communities and for the regional economy.
The routes serve one of Britain’s largest Pakistani diaspora belts. Families from Manchester to Bradford no longer need to drive to London or change planes in the Gulf to reach Lahore or Islamabad.
Manchester opened the door for wider UK flying. PIA landed back at Heathrow on March 29 this year, six years after it last flew there, and it now runs London flights out of both Islamabad and Lahore.
The airline has also changed hands. A consortium led by Arif Habib Corporation bought 75% of PIA this year, in Pakistan’s first major privatisation in decades. The new owners have pledged to expand the fleet to 64 aircraft.
Arif Habib has already pointed to the airline’s biggest constraint. He said a shortage of aircraft had kept PIA from fully serving high-demand markets, the UK among them.
Competition is coming too. Pakistan has approved Norway’s Norse Atlantic Airways to fly to Islamabad from London, Manchester and Birmingham, which would hand northern England’s travellers a second direct option.
For now, PIA has the Manchester corridor largely to itself. The question for its new owners is whether they can find enough aircraft to hold on to it.
