Glasgow will lose its direct air link with Pakistan later this month following a shake-up by Pakistan International Airlines ahead of its proposed new partnership with Turkish Airlines.
PIA closes its twice weekly Glasgow-Lahore route on January 22 following an appraisal of its loss-making operations in Europe which could see it pull out completely from some countries. PIA’s decision to axe Glasgow is linked with competition from Emirates, which operates daily from Glasgow to Dubai with onward connections to Pakistan.
Speaking from PIA’s base in Karachi, spokesman Mamoon Rashid said flights from Pakistan to Heathrow, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds/Bradford were profitable and could be expanded. PIA will also continue with its Manchester-New York route.
“In the UK there are no other closures apart from Glasgow,” he said. “Glasgow did not meet its operating costs, we tried to linger for a year, but it did not improve.”
He said expansion of existing routes to the UK was likely once PIA had finalized a code-sharing arrangement with Turkish Airlines. Under the deal, due to be concluded at the end of the month, the two airlines will operate from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad to Istanbul, feeding Turkish Airlines’ transcontinental services, such as those to the US.
PIA has been forced into this agreement because it has seen a huge part of its business lost to Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad. PIA’s own figures reveal that 81 per cent of Pakistan’s international traffic currently travels in this way.
Rashid said any expansion on UK routes would be in time for the summer timetable, which starts at the end of March.
“We’re still in negotiations with Turkish. It is not yet finalized, but we will be able to take aircraft from any routes that we close and put them into the UK,” he said.
He added that direct routes from Pakistan to Paris, Oslo and Copenhagen were likely to be spared.