Pakistan’s prime minister ordered an investigation Tuesday into how the country’s national airline approved an ad featuring an illustration that many on social media said was uncomfortably similar to images from Sept. 11, 2001.
The commercial by state-owned Pakistan International Airlines, or PIA, was meant to be a celebratory announcement that it was resuming flights to Paris.
But the ad — featuring an image of a plane heading towards the Eiffel Tower with the words “Paris, we’re coming today” — drew swift condemnation after it was published late last week. AND by air mail on X who posted the image has been viewed more than 21 million times.
“Pakistan Air Needs New Graphic Designer”, Ian Bremmer, Political Scientist and Writer, wrote on Threadssocial network.
Omar R. Quraishi, a newspaper columnist, said the ad left him speechless. “Don’t they know about the tragedy of 9/11 – where planes were used to attack buildings,” Mr Quraishi wrote on X.
Pakistan has something to do with the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of masterminding the attack, was arrested in Pakistan in 2003. Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011.
The country’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, said during a session of parliament that the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, had asked for an investigation into how the advertisement was approved by the airlines’ internal approvals.
The ad tirade is the latest setback for PIA, which is grappling with financial losses and setbacks in the government’s desperate bid to privatize the airline.
In November, pushing for privatization stuck when the sole bidder offered less than 12 percent of the government’s minimum sale price of about $300 million.
Controversy is familiar territory for PIA. In 2017, the airline made international headlines when ground crew members sacrificed a goat on the asphalt for luck.
It has also faced questions about its safety standards, with the United States and Britain banning its planes from flying there. It resumed flights to Paris after the European Union’s air traffic safety agency lifted the duty four-year ban on the airline.
