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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0191.PDF
FLIGHT, 14 February 1958 201 PRIDE OF PAKISTAN TALKING AIR TRANSPORT SHOP ON A FLIGHT WITH P.I.A. A FORTNIGHT ago Humphrey Wynn of "Flight" editorial staff flew to Karachi by Pakistan InternationalAirlines in order to attend the Pakistan Air Force display and visit the P.A.F. His description of the display appears on the preceding two pages and his Air Force article will appear in the near future.Below he writes of the airline journey and the company's operations. AT Karachi airport stands the long and lofty hangar built to/•^ house the R.lOl, a melancholy monument to the airship •*- -*- which never came. (It is now used for storage, and areliable eye-witness records having once seen 56 DC-3s inside.) Above wheel the hawks, hovering silently as over so many Easterncities; around it, the Sind desert is as brown as it was in the days of the Mogul emperors. But the man-made atmosphere haschanged, and this change is evident both in the aircraft which stand on the tarmac at Karachi airport—the Super Constellations,Convairs and Dakotas with "Pakistan International" lettered in English and Urdu on their sides, and the green crescent andstar insignia of Pakistan on their tail fins—and in the new buildings erected (or to be erected) for the administrative and maintenancework of Pakistan International Airlines Corporation. For example, near to the R.lOl hangar—one of the last surviving relics of theBritish Raj hereabouts—is to be built a hangar for the three Viscount 815s which P.I.A. hope to receive in October. Like the State of Pakistan itself, P.I.A. has come into beingwithin the last ten years, and the pride felt in its growth and achievement paralleled the national pride in the new Islamic State.Indeed, P.I.A. is regarded by many Pakistanis as being the best possible advertisement for their country overseas; and it provides avital link between Pakistan's two "wings"—West and East Pakistan —which are separated by over a thousand miles of Indian territory.Furthermore, as well as being international, P.I.A. provides all the country's scheduled domestic cargo and passenger services. In aword, civil aviation in Pakistan is virtually synonymous with P.I.A. The company was formed in 1951 to take over the serviceswhich, since about 1946, had been operated by Orient Airways. This take-over was complete by 1955, with Orient continuing torun non-scheduled services. Many of the pilots now with P.I.A. flew originally with Orient, which was Pakistan's first nationalairline and the first overseas airways company of undivided India. At the take-over, the Government held about 51 per cent of theshares; it now gives the Corporation an indirect subsidy in the P.I.A. Super Constellation of Karachi international airport. "The stewardess . . . wearing a distinctive green costume draped with a white band over the shoulders ..." form of a fixed sum for each passenger carried between East andWest Pakistan. P.I.A.'s present fleet consists of three Super Constellation1049Cs; four Convair CV-240s; and ten DC-3s. In about March it is due to receive two Super Constellation 1049Hs (which offerthe "convertibility" of great cargo capacity and bigger doors); and three Viscount 815s are on order, delivery being due to start thisOctober, with one aircraft a month for three months. (Possession of this, the latest and fastest mark of Viscount, P.I.A. point outwith pride, will give them a clear advantage over their rivals Air-India, who operate 700s.) With their present aircraft, P.I.A. maintain international servicesto as far as London in the West and Rangoon in the East, and domestic schedules serving Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar inWestern Pakistan and Dacca, Chittagong and Jessore in Eastern Pakistan. They also fly regularly to Delhi and Bombay in India,and to Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan. The total route mileage covered by the company is 11,000. The Super Constellations maintain the twice-weekly scheduleto London and the services from Dacca to Lahore and Karachi; the CV-240s fly a daily Karachi - Bombay run and four schedulesa week to Delhi, as well as operating on the Karachi - Lahore route; and the rest of the services are maintained by the hard-workingand ever-faithful DC-3s. The Super Constellation London - Karachi return services leavein each direction twice-weekly (on Tuesdays and Fridays from Karachi and on Wednesday and Saturdays eastbound). Theseservices, while naturally being P.I.A.'s pride and joy as an inter- national flag carrier, present the airline with one of its chief
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