PIA restores Skardu-UAE operations: Here's flight schedule

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's national carrier would be resuming flights to the United Arab Emirates, it emerged on Friday.

The flight operations were suspended in winter due to harsh weather conditions in the area; however, a spokesman of the carrier has confirmed that PIA will start two flights in a week from April 29th.

The flights would be operated from Skardu to Dubai, UAE. It is to be mentioned that PIA started international flight operations on the route in August 2023.

PIA officials believe that the resumption of flights to UAE will promote international tourism, trekking and expedition in the Baltistan Region. 

Meanwhile, efforts to privatize the national carrier are being made and the federal government has decided to privatize the carrier by June this year.

The calls for privatizing the airline were made during the previous regime and the follow-up deliberations also led to promulgation of the Privatisation Ordinance to remove the role of high courts in privatization transactions aimed at avoiding legal hitches.

The state-owned Pakistan International Airlines has been under fire for denting a severe blow to the national exchequer and facing hiccups due to multiple factors. Time and again, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) freezes its accounts while Pakistan State Oil (PSO) also refuses to supply oil to the carrier.

The airline recently settled a dispute with an Indonesian firm and got possession of two of its aircraft though the airline failed to prove itself sustainable in the long term which has forced the policymakers to finally do away with it and hand it over to a private investor.