Above 40,000 foreign flights used Afghan airspace last year

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) on Monday said over 40,000 international transit flights used Afghanistan’s airspace last year.

The number of international flights has notably increased over the last two months.

Maulvi Fatihullah Mansour, Head of Aviation Operations at MoTCA, announced these figures during a performance review at the Government Media and Information Centre.

Mansour said that there were 40,016 foreign transit flights, averaging about 110 flights per day. Recently, this number has surged, with 265 transit flights now occurring daily.

Additionally, over the past year, Afghanistan's airports handled a total of 12,503 flights, including 5,413 international and 7,090 domestic flights. These flights carried 1.89 million passengers, with 1.12 million traveling internationally and 774,700 on domestic trips. A total of 260,281 foreigners visited Afghanistan during this period.

Mansour highlighted that several airlines, including Ariana Afghan Airlines, Kam Air, Turkish Airlines, Al-Arabiya, Fly Dubai, Yazd, Iran Air, Kish, Mahan, and Taban, have been providing regular services at Afghan airports.

Currently, Afghanistan has 27 active airports, of which five are international.

Imamuddin Ahmadi, a MoTCA spokesman, without providing details about revenue from transit flights, said each flight was subject to a $700 transit fee.

Finance and Administrative Assistant at MoTCA, Eng. Hafiz Siddiqullah Abid, reported that major and minor project contracts have been signed over the past year, with 90 percent of work completed on at least 80 projects.

Of these, 50 projects were funded by the ministry's development budget, while the remaining were completed through public-private partnerships, creating over 4,000 jobs.

Mullah Abdul Salam Haidari, Deputy Head of the Land Transport Office, added that 547,380 Afghan trucks traveled to neighboring countries such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Iran, and Pakistan, while 434,709 foreign trucks entered Afghanistan over the past year.

sa/ma