Pakistan Airlines ad shows plane flying at Eiffel Tower

Pakistan International Airlines is no stranger to controversy. (PIA)

Islamabad, January 16 — Pakistan's flag carrier has drawn widespread criticism for putting out an advertisement that showed a plane flying towards the Eiffel Tower.

The ad was meant to promote the resumption of Pakistan International Airlines' flights to the French capital and had the caption "Paris, we're coming today".

Some social media users noted the ad's resemblance to the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001.

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

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

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered an investigation into the matter, while Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has also criticised the ad, Pakistan's Geo News reported.

The 9/11 attacks saw hijackers crash passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, killing nearly 3,000 people.

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

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

Pakistani journalist Omar Quraishi said PIA's ad left him "truly speechless".

"Did the airline management not vet this?

"Do they not know about the 9/11 tragedy - which used planes to attack buildings? Did they not think that this would be perceived in similar fashion," he wrote on X.

The airline has not commented on the incident.

The PIA, however, is no stranger to controversy.

Some X users pointed out that in 1979, the airline published an advertisement showing a passenger jet's shadow over the twin towers.

In 2017, the airline was mocked after staff sacrificed a goat to ward off bad luck following one of the country's worst air disasters.

And in 2019, PIA caused a stir when it told flight attendants to slim down or get grounded. Staff were told they had had six months to shed "excess weight".