PIA - Pakistan International Airlines (PK, Islamabad International) has leased out eight of its London Heathrow slot pairs for the Winter 2022/23 season to avoid losing them due to underutilisation.
Slot trade records show the Pakistani flag carrier has leased seven slot pairs (allowing daily operations) to Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Airport) starting on November 13, 2022, and another pair for Saturday flights to Kuwait Airways (KU, Kuwait) starting on November 5. Turkish Airlines will use the additional slots for daily services from Istanbul Airport using A321-200neo, while Kuwait Airways plans to operate an additional rotation from Kuwait using a B777-300(ER).
The leases have been signed through March 25, 2023.
"We have given them [the slots] under the babysitting concept for six months and will get them back once the flight operation starts," the carrier told Geo.tv.
According to data, PIA held a total of ten slot pairs per week at Heathrow for the Winter 2022/23 season, including five for services from Islamabad International, two each for services from Lahore International and Karachi International, and one for flights from Sialkot. However, the airline is currently unable to use most of them, as it has been banned from flying to the United Kingdom and the European Union since July 1, 2020, after an investigation revealed the widespread forgery of pilot licences in Pakistan. Since then, PIA has been resorting to chartering widebody capacity from other carriers authorised to operate in the UK and the EU to maintain limited services to Europe. It currently charters an A330-200 from Jordan Aviation (R5, Amman Queen Alia), the ch-aviation fleets module shows, deploying the aircraft out of Islamabad International to London Heathrow, Manchester International, Birmingham, GB, and Paris CDG. All flights are operated under Jordan Aviation's "R5" code. With just one chartered aircraft, PIA is unable to maintain enough services to Heathrow to use all of its slots.
