A major development has been made in the way to lift the ban on PIA flights to the European countries, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Sunday.

Sources informed that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has decided to conduct an audit of the Pakistan International Airline. 

The EASA will hold an online audit of the PIA on March 7. It will check PIA’s flight safety, flight engineering, flight operation and other measures. 

Sources further said that if the PIA audit was successful, the EASA team would visit Pakistan and conduct further audit of the Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The PIA spokesperson stated that all the preparations related to the online audit of the EASA were completed and he expressed his optimism that there were bright chances that after the successful audit, the PIA flights to Europe would be resumed.

The EASA suspended the PIA from operating flights to European Union member countries for six months in July 2020 due to safety concerns. However, the agency unsatisfied with the PIA safety measures decided to extend the suspension up until now.

Reporter Saeed Ahmad Saeed