Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport has reopened on a limited basis, according to reports. The civilian side of the airport had been closed until further notice after it was breached by desperate Afghanis seeking to escape the country as the Taliban claimed control of the country’s capital this weekend.
Shocking scenes have been coming out of Kabul International Airport since late in the weekend. While a lone Turkish Airlines flight made it in and out of Kabul Airport on Monday, no commercial flights seem to have used the airport yesterday until a Russian Airliner landed at the airport earlier today.
Kabul reopen?
It seems that both the Civilian and Military sides of Kabul Airport are now open to a limited extent, according to reporting from ch-aviation.com, tied with flight data from FlightRadar24.com. The military side had already been available with several countries operating repatriation flights for citizens yesterday.
According to ch-aviation.com, both sides of the airport are now available after troops resecured the civilian side of the airport. Operators intending to land in the city must request permission before landing, which is valid for 30 minutes from the issue.
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IFR flights to Kabul are currently not possible as air traffic controllers aren’t available to direct flights. Instead, each flight must operate as a VFR flight at its own risk. Additionally, not aviation fuel is available at the airport, meaning that planes must land with enough fuel to depart again, a process known in the industry as tankering.
One passenger plane has already arrived
According to data available from FlightRadar24.com, it seems as though one commercial aircraft has already arrived in Kabul since the airport was reopened. A Utair Boeing 767 registered as VP-BAG departed from the Vnukovo International Airport in Russia at 10:04 this morning. Having flown through Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, the aircraft arrived in Afghan airspace. It landed four and three-quarter hours after departure at 16:18.
According to data from ch-aviation.com, the aircraft is 20.54 years old, having first flown in February 2001. It was initially delivered to continental airlines before joining the Utair fleet in May 2012. With 41,725 flight hours across 6,277 flight cycles as of June 2014, the aircraft is listed with a current market value of $3.36 million.
At the time of writing, a second passenger aircraft was also inbound. A Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 777 registered as AP-BGJ departed from Islamabad in neighboring Pakistan at 17:26. The flight, PK6249, was due to take off at 10:10. The aircraft touched down in Kabul at 17:41.
What do you make of the reopening of Kabul Airport? Let us know what you think and why in the comments below.
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