A Pakistan Airlines ad shows a plane flying by the Eiffel Tower

Pakistan’s state-owned airline has drawn widespread criticism for running an ad that showed a plane flying towards the Eiffel Tower.

The ad aimed to promote the resumption of Pakistan International Airlines flights to the French capital and had the tagline “Paris, we arrive today”.

Some social media users noted the ad’s similarity to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

“Is this an advertisement or a threat?” one user wrote on X. Another called on the company to “fire your marketing manager.”

The image has been viewed more than 21 million times on X since it was posted last week and sparked a swift backlash.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered an inquiry into the matter, while Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar also criticized the ad, Pakistan’s Geo News reported.

The Terrorist attacks on September 11 saw hijackers crash passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, killing nearly 3,000 people.

The alleged organizer of the terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, was arrested in Pakistan in 2003.

Osama bin Laden, the leader of the extremist network al-Qaeda, which planned terrorist attacks, was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011.

Pakistani journalist Omar Qureshi said the PIA ad left him “really speechless”.

“Didn’t the airline management check this?

“Do they not know about the tragedy of 9/11, during which the planes attacked the buildings? Did they not think it would be received like this,” he wrote on X.

The airline does not comment on the incident.

PIA, however, is no stranger to controversy.

Some X users noted that in 1979 the airline ran an ad showing the shadow of a passenger plane over the Twin Towers.

In 2017, the airline’s staff were bullied sacrificed a goat to ward off bad luck after one of the biggest plane crashes in the country.

And in 2019, PIA caused a stir when it ordered flight attendants to lose weight or lose weight. Employees were told they had six months to lose the “excess weight”.