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Afghan Airline Hopes and Waits
Monday, January 14, 2002
The Associated Press

"So many passengers from out of the country want to come to Afghanistan straightaway," said the national air-carrier Ariana's president, Rohullah Aman. "And a lot of Afghans, they want to come home."

KABUL, Afghanistan -- AP
He smiles as he reminisces, this snowy-haired airplane pilot who spins tales of DC-10s crammed with Afghanistan-bound Europeans seeking exotic vacations. "People had to wait a month to get a seat," Said Nabi Hashimi recalls.

But that was the 1970s, when Afghanistan and the world were different. Since then, during Soviet invasion, years of factional fighting and the arrival of the Taliban, the national carrier Ariana deteriorated along with the rest of the country.

Its international flights came to a total halt when the United Nations imposed anti-Taliban sanctions. Since Oct. 13, 1999, when an afternoon flight from Kabul touched down in the United Arab Emirates, not a single jet with the Ariana logo has flown a commercial run beyond Afghanistan.

That is about to change. The United Nations is lifting the sanctions and clearing the airline -- which currently has only one working jumbo jet -- to rebuild and rejoin the ranks of international commercial aviation.

"We've just been sitting around," Hashimi, Ariana's chief pilot, said this weekend, doing just that over coffee with colleagues in his office. They had not heard about the impending U.N. decision until a visitor delivered the news.
(More: AfghanNews.net News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan