The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has decided to suspend its flights to Tokyo starting next month due to "heavy losses", a spokesperson said on Sunday.

The national flag-carrier currently flies to the Japanese capital as the second leg of its Islamabad-Beijing-Tokyo route.

But starting February 15, it will suspend the Tokyo flights "due to heavy losses being incurred on this route", PIA spokesman Mashood Tajwar told Dawn.com.

Read: PIA's free-fall: what went wrong and who is to blame?

He clarified that only the flights between Beijing and Tokyo were being suspended and that the Islamabad-Beijing route will remain intact.

In November 2017, PIA had discontinued its flights to the United States after reportedly incurring Rs1.2 billion annual operational losses on the Islamabad-New York route.

The national airline is currently looking to expand its business and is working towards its rebranding. In December, it launched a second flight from Islamabad to Doha and in November, it recommenced flights to Muscat and Sharjah from Lahore and Sialkot, respectively.