Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) added its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to the fleet on Sunday, as flight PK-786 touched down in Islamabad after a non-stop run from London. PIA chief executive Aamir Hayat and his team were on hand at Islamabad International Airport to receive the widebody jet, which the airline says makes it the first Pakistani carrier to fly the 787-9.
The aircraft is on lease from Norway’s Norse Atlantic Airways under an ACMI deal — aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance supplied by the lessor — that PIA signed last month for two Boeing 787-9s, as PakDaily reported at the time. Sunday’s jet is the first of the two to arrive; PIA has not given a date for the second.
The Dreamliner landed on the same day PIA moved its Islamabad-London and Lahore-London routes to daily Heathrow service, up from a combined seven flights a week since direct UK flights resumed in March after a six-year gap. An unnamed PIA spokesperson said the new jet marks “the start of expansion,” with the airline aiming for wider global connectivity and a more comfortable long-haul cabin.
| Aircraft Type | PIA Fleet Count | Typical Role |
|---|---|---|
| Boeing 777 | 12 | Long-haul widebody |
| Airbus A320 | 15 | Short/medium-haul |
| ATR (turboprop) | 5 | Regional/domestic |
| Boeing 787-9 (leased) | 1 — a second is due later | New long-haul widebody; up to 325 seats, 15,370km range |
Pakistan’s Aircraft Owners and Operators Association (AOOA) welcomed the arrival but paired that with a pointed caveat:
“This is an important milestone for PIA and a step towards the airline’s revival,” the AOOA said, adding that new aircraft alone would not be enough to restore the carrier’s standing — service standards on the ground and in the air would also need to improve.
The Dreamliner is the clearest sign yet of PIA trying to make good on the promises made at its privatisation. The national carrier was sold off in December 2025, when a consortium led by Arif Habib Corporation won a 75% stake for Rs135 billion and pledged fleet expansion, operational restructuring and better customer service for an airline that had been losing money for years. The jet’s arrival also follows a September episode in which the federal government had to publicly clarify it was not buying aircraft for PIA, after reports surfaced that a federal minister had arranged sovereign-linked financing for the planes — a reminder that the airline’s modernisation plans remain politically sensitive even when, as here, the financing route is a straightforward commercial lease.
Our Opinion
A single leased Dreamliner does not undo years of PIA’s troubled finances and patchy service record, but it is a tangible, verifiable step in a turnaround that has mostly consisted of promises so far; the real test will be whether the airline can keep the jet reliably in the air on schedule, turn the new daily London service into a genuinely profitable route, and extend the same upgrade to a fleet that still leans heavily on older aircraft — because, as the AOOA pointedly noted, a newer plane changes very little if punctuality and cabin service don’t improve alongside it.
