Pakistan Airlines ad shows plane about to crash into Eiffel Tower.
Credit: Pakistan Airlines advert and post on X.
Complete disbelief over Pakistan Airlines’ ad campaign for flights to France.
Pakistan Airlines ad shows a Pakistani plane about to crash into Eiffel Tower. “Paris, we’re coming!”… Who wrote this?
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has terrified and amused the world in equal measures with its new advert which aimed to promote its new route between Islamabad and the French capital. The Pakistani airline went all out and published an image of what appeared to be a Pakistani Airlines plane about to crash into the Eiffel Tower with the message “Paris, we’re coming today.”
Pakistan Airlines has landed in hot water after a controversial advert designed to promote its newly resumed direct flights to Paris was slammed for being ‘tone-deaf’ and triggering a social media uproar.
The advert, posted by PIA on social media, shows a plane flying directly towards the iconic Eiffel Tower and appears to be about to crash into it. The caption reads “Paris, we’re coming today.” It looks a lot like scenes from the 9-11 attacks in New York, and social media users have been quick to point it out.
Tone-deaf? PR expert Omar R. Quraishi certainly thought so, slamming the ad as “completely tone deaf” in a post on X. “Did the idiot who designed this graphic not see a PIA plane heading for the Eiffel Tower? Do they not know about the 9/11 tragedy – which used planes to attack buildings?” Quraishi fumed.
It didn’t take long for social media users to follow suit. “This is by far the worst ad ever. It actually looks like they’re planning to fly a plane aircraft into the Eiffel Tower,” one Facebook user complained. Another user on X joked, “They already lost Notre Dame once – now you’re taking the Eiffel Tower away?”
And the jokes kept coming. Someone posted an image of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, with the caption: “Newly hired Graphic Designer at PIA.”
It wasn’t just ridicule – there was confusion too. One user wrote, “Wait? Is this a joke? Is this from a parody account? I’m genuinely confused.”
But not all the reactions were negative. Some defended the ad, saying it had managed to do its job of promoting the new service. “Let’s be honest, without the terrible design of their post, none of us would even know that PIA is flying to Paris now,” one user commented. No publicity is bad publicity?
Another X user shared a Pakistan Airlines advert for the Islamabad-Paris route, showing the shadow of an approaching airliner cast over the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. At first, many thought it was a fake, but it was later confirmed to be authentic. It was published in French magazines L’Expansion and Le Point in 1979.
It wasn’t all bad news for Pakistan’s flag carrier. PIA’s flights to Europe resumed recently after the European Union’s aviation safety agency lifted a four-year ban imposed on the airline due to safety concerns. This followed the tragic crash of a PIA flight in Karachi in 2020, which killed 97 people on board.
The EU ban, which cost PIA nearly $150 million (€146 million) a year, was lifted after the airline showed improvements in its safety standards. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the resumption of flights, calling it a chance to improve the airline’s image.
Neither French nor Pakistani officials have commented on the backlash so far, but it’s clear that PIA’s marketing team might want to rethink their next move before the next flight departs.
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