page_title: Pakistan International Airlines
section_title: Livery
hierarchical_section_title: Pakistan International Airlines / Livery
caption_attribution_description: English: PIA legacy tail design.
context_page_description: Pakistan International Airlines is the national flag carrier of Pakistan under the administrative control of the Secretary to the Government of Pakistan for Aviation. Its central hub is Karachi's Jinnah International Airport, while Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore, and Islamabad International Airport serve as secondary hubs.
  PIA was founded on 29 October 1946 as Orient Airways, and was initially based in Calcutta, British India, before shifting operations to the newly independent state of Pakistan in 1947. Orient Airways was nationalised to form the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation. The new airline commenced international services in 1955 to London, via Cairo and Rome. PIA became the first Asian airline to operate jet aircraft with the induction of the Boeing 707 into commercial service on 7 March 1960, and later in 1964 became the first non-Communist airline to fly to China. The airline played a vital role in the establishment of the Emirates airline in 1985. In 2004, PIA become the launch customer of the Boeing 777-200LR. On 10 November 2005 used the Boeing 777-200LR to complete the world's longest nonstop flight by a commercial airliner.
context_section_description: In December 2003, PIA introduced a new image that was applied to its first Boeing  777-200ER and on two newly leased Airbus A310s, one of which was in service. The livery was white at the front and beige at the rear separated by a dark green stripe. The tail was painted white with a new typeface PIA acronym written in dark green. The Pakistan title was added to the front fuselage in all raised letters and the engine cowlings were painted in beige. The PIA logo written in calligraphic Urdu was added just behind the cockpit. However, due to criticism, the design was modified before the first Boeing 777 was delivered. The tail logo was replaced by a flowing Pakistan flag on a beige background. The "Pakistan" titles were removed and the PIA acronym was enlarged and moved onto the fuselage. The English and Urdu PIA titles remained the same. The leased A310s and most of the PIA fleet also adopted this livery at a later date.
  In early 2006, the airline launched four new tail designs for its fleet. The tails represented the four provinces of Pakistan: Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and Balochistan. The tails promoted the cultures of the four provinces of Pakistan by applying motifs to the tails and adding a city name to the rear of the fuselage corresponding to the province. The "Frontier" tail represented the "Phulkari" (flowering) pattern, which reflected a tradition of embroidery generally done on shawls, shirts, and linen. The "Punjab" tail was loosely related to the tile decoration of the Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore. The "Balochistan" tail showed the creativity seen in the local kilims, carpets, and rugs woven with wool, goat or camel hair and mixed yarn. The pattern was mostly bold geometric motifs in primary colours dominated by red. The "Sindh" tail was influenced by the Hala tile work with electric blue and white floral patterns. In 2009, management stopped the application of provincial tails, deeming them too costly.
  PIA launched its new livery in early April 2010. An Airbus A310, Boeing 777-200 and Boeing 747-300 were the first aircraft to wear the new look. The livery was unveiled at the PIA headquarters on a Boeing 777 model. The livery consisted of a green and gold strip running around the bottom of the fuselage and continuing right up until the tail cone. The forward/upper portion was white and at the rear, it was an off-white/beige colour. The bottom part of the tail blended into the upper fuselage as it too is white, with the rest of the tail painted with a large wavy Pakistan flag, which takes up the whole tail, in a dark green colour. At the front of the fuselage, 'PIA' was written in a billboard style in dark green and underneath 'Pakistan' was written in golden colour. Just behind the cockpit, there is a stylised Urdu PIA logo as well as on the engines.
  In July 2014, on the delivery of the first A320 series aircraft, PIA introduced a "crescent and star" on the aircraft engines' cowlings in place of the Urdu PIA logo. In 2015, after the completion of sixty years service, the 1960s livery was applied to three of the Airbus A320s and on one Boeing 777-200ER.
  In April 2018, PIA formally launched a new brand identity and livery and added a portrait of the Markhor in a ceremony held at PIA Offices in Islamabad, presented by the then head of brand of PIA, having Pakistan's national animal represented on its aircraft, including a large one on the tail and two on the engines, describing the resilient nature of PIA Brand surviving under the onslaught of all the negativity associated with the brand. The symbol of animal was chosen for its universal recognition as the Urdu calligraphy logo of PIA could not be comprehended by non-Pakistani customers. In essence the idea was to make PIA a truly international brand based on the values of resilience, grace and fortitude, something which PIA had lost with increased focus on ethnic traffic. The tail had a forward leaping Markhor having long screw horns, which are the features of 'Kashmiri Markhor' endemic to Pakistan only. According to the initial plan, a euro-white style
caption: PIA's 1980s legacy tail, which became an identity for the airline
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