The 56-year old connectivity between Pakistan and United States through Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has been suspended for an indefinite period. The last flight PK-711 to US flew from Lahore in the wee hours of Saturday (today) to the New York (JFK) with a stopover at Manchester. Although the PIA officials, who did not want to be named, have not ruled out the possibilities of political influence behind its suspension in order to provide 'safe space' to one of the local airlines to commence operations on the said route.
Replying to a question, they said that presently no local airline had long haul aircraft in its fleet but these airlines could acquire required aircraft on wet lease and enter into the competition with foreign airlines after PIA flight suspension for this route. The airline has three code-sharing partners - Etihad, Emirates and Turkish airlines - but none of these has been finalized so far for this route, said PIA officials; adding that PIA might go with Etihad airlines for code-sharing on this route as it had partnership with American airlines for this region.
Meanwhile, the PIA spokesman said the flight suspension to the US was due to commercial reasons as the airline on this route was incurring losses to the tune of Rs 1 billion per annum. He said that there was no timeframe for its resumption but possibilities were there as PIA had restarted Bangkok and Barcelona operations in recent past.
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