Despite this, the international airline and the industry figures have jointly recorded losses touching Rs. 450 billion in the past four and a half years.
As per Privatization Commission sources, PIA itself has incurred losses of about Rs. 220 billion, while the rest of the losses to the industry amount to around Rs. 250 billion, as reported by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), mainly due to restrictions on Pakistani carriers in the EU airspace.
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The restoration of the routes in Europe marks a sizable advancement in the privatization of PIA. Just this week, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) reinstated flight operations for PIA, while also confirming that authorization for Third Country Operators (TCO) has been released to Airblue, Nadir Shafi Dar, CAA Director General, made an announcement.
Sources said restoration of the routes to the UK was also on the cards soon. Efforts are being made to restore PIA before its privatization.
According to sources, talks for the privatization of PIA are also ongoing under a government-to-government (G2G) agreement in place.