DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Two years after the Taliban’s occupation of Afghanistan, the United States is enacting rules allowing commercial airlines to fly over the country on routes that reduce east-west travel times and fuel consumption. started mitigation.
But these shortened flight routes to India and Southeast Asia raise questions that were never answered during the previous Taliban rule, from the 1990s until the months after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
If you were to deal with the Taliban, how would you deal with it? block women from school It engages in behavior that UN experts say may resemble “gender apartheid”. Can airlines manage the risk of flying in uncontrolled airspace over a country that still harbors an estimated 4,500 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft weapons? And what if there is an emergency and you need to land suddenly?
Who would want to fly over such a country? His OPS Group, an aviation industry organization, recently gave the simple answer: “No one!”
“There are no air traffic control services throughout the country. The list of surface-to-air weapons is endless. Fly too low and they may fire at you. If forced to go around. I wish the Taliban good luck,” the group said. Wrote the recommendation using the acronym for air traffic control.
Still, the possibility of resuming overflights will have major implications for airlines.
Although Afghanistan is a landlocked country, its location in Central Asia makes it along the most direct routes for those traveling from India to Europe and America.rear Occupation of Kabul by the Taliban on 15 August 2021, civil aviation simply stopped because ground controllers could no longer control the airspace.Fear of subsequent anti-aircraft fire, especially Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine in 2014.saw authorities around the world order civil aviation grounded.
Since then, the airline has made a big turn near the Afghan border. The aircraft will pass through Afghan airspace for just a few minutes, passing through the sparsely populated Wakhan Corridor (a narrow pot handle jutting into the eastern part of the country between Tajikistan and Pakistan) before continuing its flight.
However, these diversions result in longer flight times and cause aircraft to consume more jet fuel, a significant expense for any airline. That is why the Federal Aviation Administration announced in late July that flights at altitudes above 32,000 feet (9,750 meters) “may resume due to reduced risk to US civil aviation operations at these altitudes.” and grabbed the attention of the industry.
The FAA, which oversees rules for U.S.-based airlines, referred questions to the State Department about the motivations for the decision. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment. But since the US and NATO withdrew from Afghanistan, State Department envoys have met with Taliban officials on numerous occasions.
Taliban officials likewise did not respond to repeated requests by the Associated Press for comment on the lifting of restrictions.
So far, apart from those in Afghanistan and Iran, no airlines appear to be seizing opportunities in the country. Since the CIA armed mujahideen fighters to fight the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Afghanistan has had a large number of missiles aimed at aircraft, partly due to the risk of fire by militants. Afghanistan may still have Soviet-era KS-19 anti-aircraft guns, said Dylan Lee Lehrke, an analyst at Jane’s, an open-source intelligence firm.
The FAA said it believed these weapons would not reach flights above 32,000 feet, even if fired from a mountaintop.
United Airlines has a direct flight from Newark, New Jersey, to New Delhi via the Wakhan Corridor, which could be shortened by overflights.
“In accordance with current FAA regulations, United Airlines is operating flights from Newark to New Delhi over a small area of Afghanistan that is subject to air traffic control by other countries,” United spokesman Josh Fried told The Associated Press. Told. Currently in Afghan airspace. “
Virgin Atlantic flights to New Delhi also fly over this corridor. The UK has yet to change its guidelines telling airlines to stay out of most of Afghanistan’s airspace. Virgin Atlantic said it was “dynamically assessing its operational routes based on the latest situation reports and following the rigorous advice set by the UK at all times.”
American Airlines and Air India also use the Wakhan Corridor. The carriers did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s no longer of interest, but airlines used to frequent the route. According to a November 2014 report by the International Civil Aviation Organization, overflights rose from near zero in 2002 to more than 100,000 a year about 12 years later. Before the Taliban hijack, the government charged a fee of $700 for each flight over the country. With Afghanistan still in an economic crisis, this could be a lot of cash.
And the collection and retention of overflight fees has priority. After the US-led invasion in 2001, officials eventually waived about $20 million in frozen overflight costs to Afghanistan’s inaugural government.
But the Taliban say they are already profiting from limited overflight. Afghanistan’s private television broadcaster Toro quoted Transport and Aviation Ministry spokesman Imamuddin Ahmadi as saying that Afghanistan has earned more than $8.4 million in overflight fees in the past four months.
“A plane flying through Afghan airspace has to pay $700,” Ahmadi said. “More flights will benefit Afghanistan.”
The ministry also said it received funding from the International Air Transport Association, a trade association of airlines around the world. However, IATA told the Associated Press in a statement that the contract with Afghanistan to collect overflight fees “has been suspended since September 2021” in accordance with international sanctions against the Taliban.
“No payments have been made since that date,” it said.
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Associated Press reporter Rahim Fayez, who lives in Islamabad, contributed to the report.