After reading yesterday about U.S. involvement in the creation of a new Iraqi national airline, I tracked down the national airline of Afghanistan, Ariana Afghan Airlines.

Ariana flies A300, Boeing 727, and Antonov 24 aircraft. The Antonov plane is 44 years old.

The airline is pushing new ‘online booking’ which just consists of a fill-in form to enter your name and the dates you would like to travel. There’s no real-time availability or even online payment available. The same “online booking” for the Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul is offered.

Under “Safety” the website discusses the history of Pan Am ownership and procedures in the 1950s, hardly inspiring for today. Then it skips to:

At present Ariana posses four Boeing 727-200 and three Airbus 300B4 which are in good are reliable condition.

Note that they say nothing about the Antonov!

Among the reasons to be confident in their safety are that they managed to secure insurance on the aircraft and

We have regular ground school for our crew.



All Cockpit crew attended cockpit management course recently.

It’s hard to imagine an airline where safety wasn’t a concern even having a page like this.