POLITICIANS are hopeful of restoring Scotland's only direct air link with Pakistan after securing talks with Government ministers from the country.
Hanzala Malik, Labour MSP for Glasgow, said he had been given an assurance by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) the state-owned firm will reinstate the city's twice-weekly flight to Lahore that was withdrawn a year ago.
The service, which was introduced in 2006, was popular with Scotland's 50,000-strong Pakistani community and its loss has forced many passengers to travel to Manchester or London to catch alternative flights.
Mr Malik, who met Pakistan's trade minister last October to lobby for reintroduction of the flight, said the response had been sympathetic but stressed he had not yet received a guarantee of reinstating it.
He said: "What we do have is correspondence that states they will include Glasgow in the next scheduling programme. We have not yet received a response from the Pakistani Government.
"We do not yet know when the next scheduling is due and it is only then that we can be sure it will be put back on and people can buy tickets. We're not done yet."
Restoration of the direct Pakistan route would be a major boon to Glasgow's long-haul network, after Emirates announced an additional daily flight to Dubai earlier this month.
The campaign to restore the air link has also been supported by Humza Yousaf, the SNP MSP for Glasgow, who has met PIA officials to discuss the route.
However, there are fears the expansion of the Glasgow-Dubai service will make it more difficult for PIA to re-establish a direct service as passengers will have more options to fly via the Middle Eastern hub.
Despite tough competition in the aviation sector, many in Scotland's Pakistani community feel the demise of the Glasgow-Lahore service had more to do with mismanagement by PIA than a lack of demand.
Mr Malik said a lot of his constituents had claimed seats were limited on particular services only to find the plane was half-empty when they boarded.
A spokesman for Glasgow Airport said its own market research demonstrated there is adequate demand to support restoration of the route. He added: "Pakistan International Airlines' direct flight between Glasgow and Lahore was first introduced in 2006 and was hugely popular, carrying almost 30,000 passengers every year until its withdrawal in January 2011.
"There is still a strong demand for the route and we would lend our support to the calls for its re-introduction."
As well as playing an important role in maintaining links between the Scottish Pakistani diaspora and relatives in Pakistan, the Lahore service was used by Scottish export firms to access new markets, Mr Malik said.
He added: "I have seen more varieties of Irn-Bru in cities like Multan than you get in most shops in Scotland. And that was because of the PIA flight."
Mr Yousaf said the flight was particularly important for elderly people who found the inconvenience of changing flights more stressful.
He said people who wished to bury relatives in Pakistan at the earliest opportunity, in accordance with Islamic practice, had been forced to travel via Manchester, causing additional distress to them.
l British Airways is to resume flights to Libya in May, 15 months after they were suspended as the country descended into bloodshed.
The decision to reinstate three services a week to the capital, Tripoli, followed a "thorough security review" involving the Government and the new Libyan authorities, the airline said.
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