KARACHI - PIA is going to start direct flights to Barcelona (Spain) soon aprt from resuming its flights to Stansted (England) in near future, sources told The Nation. Sources said that PIA Planning Dept was working on the opening of a new route to Barcelona, Spain, to increase its operational income and ease the sufferings of the Pakistani passengers who visit Spain through transit flights. Sources in PIA said that deadline to make operational flights to these two routes in Europe would be finalised after the completion of Haj operations. According to sources, the Stansted destination was abandoned by the previous management of PIA. The new management has decided to resume flights on this route this year. After restoring the Stansted route, PIA flights will be operating on six different routes in England such as London Heathrow airport, Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford and Glasgow. The spokesman confirmed that a plan of starting direct flights to Barcelona has been finalised. The Planning and Scheduling Department said that soon the PIA would come out of the financial crunch due to various important decisions taken by MD Captain (R) Ijaz Haroon. He said that a substantial decline in fuel oil prices would be beneficial for the national airline. It may be noted that PIA management had inked agreements with petroleum companies to buy fuel when the crude oil prices stood around $120. The agreements would end in Jan 2009 and PIA would take the benefits of over 60pc decline in crude oil prices in int'l markets. The sources, however, remained tight lipped when questioned whether or not the PIA was going to reduce domestic and int'l fares in the wake of a massive cut in fuel oil prices in global and domestic markets.