Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) announced on Wednesday that it is launching three weekly direct flights between Islamabad and Birmingham from Dec 1.

The new flights will initially operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, according to a statement by the airline’s spokesperson. He added that the flights will provide direct air travel to a “large number of Pakistanis living in the northern and central regions of the United Kingdom (UK)”.

The statement added that the UK was a “highly important” air route for the airline, noting that efforts were being made to increase the total number of weekly flights between the country and Pakistan to 23.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Birmingham Airport said: “Due to high demand from travellers in the Midlands , direct flights to Islamabad will be resuming three times a week.”

In September, PIA said it would increase its weekly flights to London from four to seven, starting from Oct 27.

Pakistani flights had been banned from flying to the European Union, UK and United States in June 2020, after one of its aircraft crashed in Karachi, killing nearly 100 people on board.

The European Union Air Safety Agency had barred PIA from operating in EU countries over safety concerns. The ban on flights followed then-aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s statement on the floor of parliament, where he termed pilots’ licences “dubious”.

The European agency lifted the ban after more than four years on Nov 28, 2024. In July 2025, the UK also removed Pakistan from its Air Safety List, allowing Pakistani airlines to apply to operate flights in Britain.

In September last year, PIA received approval to resume direct flights to the UK after a gap of nearly five years. The airline subsequently restarted operations, with Manchester becoming the first destination.