The jet that taxied in at Islamabad International Airport on Sunday 1 November 2026 said NORSE in big blue letters down its side. Its passengers, though, had booked with Pakistan International Airlines, and the flight number on the departure boards at London Heathrow had been PK786.

It was the first time a Boeing 787 Dreamliner had flown for a Pakistani airline. PIA’s chief executive, Air Vice Marshal Aamir Hayat, was at the airport with his team to meet it. The PIA Boeing 787-9 is not PIA’s at all, though. It belongs to Norse Atlantic Airways, which flies it with its own crews.

A Dreamliner with a Norwegian crew

PIA signed the deal with Norse Atlantic in October, and the state news agency APP reported the agreement on 10 October. It covers two Boeing 787-9s on an ACMI basis, short for aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance. In plain English, that is a wet lease: Norse supplies the aircraft and the people who fly it and stays responsible for keeping it airworthy and insured, while PIA sells the tickets and puts its flight numbers on the services.

Photos and video released by PIA at the arrival show the aircraft in full Norse Atlantic livery, with the dark blue tail and the flynorse.com titles. The name on its nose reads Redwood. According to Pakistani media reports cited by AeroTime, the aircraft is about eight years old and flew its first commercial service in May 2018.

Before it left Europe, Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority had to clear the type, which no Pakistani operator had flown before. Khabr, citing Pakistani press reports, said a delegation led by CAA Director General Nader Shafi Dar inspected the first aircraft at Oslo Airport in late October before granting permission.

How many seats?

The seat count is one detail the reports do not agree on. Pakistani media, as cited by AeroTime and Khabr, put the cabin at 358 seats. ProPakistani noted that Norse lists its own 787-9s with 338 seats, 56 in Premium and 282 in Economy. Until PIA publishes the layout, the safest figure is the one Boeing gives for a typical 787-9: 250 to 325 passengers in a standard two-class cabin, with a range of up to 15,370 km.

That range is far more than PIA needs for now. Islamabad to London is about 6,000 km. The point of the deal is capacity, not reach.

Back in Britain, and growing

PIA returned to London on 29 March 2026 after a six-year absence. The airline had been barred from Europe since 30 June 2020, when the European Union Aviation Safety Agency found it could not meet international safety oversight standards, soon after it emerged that a large share of Pakistani pilot licences were not genuine. The EU ban ended in November 2024, and the UK restrictions on Pakistani carriers were lifted later.

Since the comeback, PIA has been adding flights. According to schedule filings reported by AeroRoutes, the Norse 787-9 replaces the airline’s Boeing 777-200ERs on Islamabad to London Heathrow from 31 October, five times a week, and on Lahore to Heathrow from 1 November, twice weekly. Islamabad to Manchester follows from 15 November and Lahore to Manchester from 18 November. The second Dreamliner will add further capacity once it joins.

Khabr, citing Express News, reported that the aircraft were taken for an initial six months. That would make the Norse jets a bridge, not a fleet. Arab News reported that Pakistan has been pressing Boeing to speed up delivery of at least five of the 16 Dreamliners it plans to acquire.

A new owner in a hurry

The lease is the first visible fleet move since the Arif Habib Corporation-led consortium took control of the airline, ending decades of state ownership. Arab News reported that the new management wants to grow the fleet to 64 aircraft over about eight years, after losses of more than $2.8 billion before the sale.

Business Recorder’s report on the arrival of PIA’s first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner in Islamabad on 1 November 2026.

Not everyone is celebrating yet. The Aircraft Owners and Operators Association Pakistan welcomed the arrival but warned that new aircraft alone would not revive the airline without punctual flights, a modern booking system and better customer service.

For now, Pakistan’s first Dreamliner flies in Norwegian colours with a Norwegian crew on the flight deck. For PIA’s passengers between Pakistan and Britain, the cabin is new. Whether the airline behind it is new too will take longer to prove.

Sources: AeroTime, Arab News Pakistan, The Express Tribune, ProPakistani, Gulf News, AeroRoutes, Khabr, Associated Press of Pakistan, PIA (@Official_PIA), Wikipedia (Pakistan International Airlines)