Yousafzai, 14, was attacked on her school bus in Mingora on October 10, reviving security concerns in a district where the army claimed in July 2009 it had crushed a Taliban insurgency.
PIA scheduled its first flight to Swat in more than five years before Malala was shot, saying it wanted to attract tourists to what was once dubbed the "Switzerland of Pakistan".
"Our main aim is to facilitate both local and foreign tourists to the region where normalcy has returned and I don't think there will be any security problems in the future," PIA chief Junaid Yusuf told journalists.
Asked if Malala's shooting would discourage visitors, he condemned the attack as "painful" but said it was an isolated incident. All private schools in Swat were closed Wednesday in the wake of the shooting.
The airline suspended commercial flights to Swat in June 2007 as the Taliban began to take root in the area, terrorising people, beheading opponents and destroying girls' schools.
PIA, which has faced serious financial problems in recent years, attributed the delay in resuming flights to the renovation of the airport at Saidu Sharif, the twin town of Mingora, where soldiers stood guard as the aircraft landed.
PIA now intends to fly from Islamabad to Swat twice a week from October 28.
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Why has it taken so long for PIA to wake up and start domestic flights to Swat?
@Satish Chandra:
Man, you sure need to take a chill-pill.
There are Taliban factions sponsored by the CIA and this bullet was from a faction sponsored by the CIA. The shooting was a psy-op (psychological operation) to facilitate a U.S. invasion of Pakistani territory.
The following is my 6-part comment on a column in New Indian Express. An hour later I found that 4 of the 6 parts had been deleted (I had to post it in 6 parts because each comment can only be up to 1,000 characters long), leaving the comment with holes in logic, incomprehensible and worthless with all of the most important information removed. Only stupid niggers working for the United States such as the author of the column are allowed in the Indian media, confirming once again that only the simultaneous nuclear destruction of New Delhi, Washington and New York will change this situation:-
http://newindianexpress.com/opinion/article1287359.ece
So tourists gonna fly to Swat after a shooting incident of which the culprits have not yet been caught?
PIA must be hearing voices from its head.