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| Founded | 27 January 1955 (1955-01-27) | ||||||
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| Hubs | Kabul International Airport | ||||||
| Secondary hubs | Kandahar International Airport | ||||||
| Frequent-flyer program | Reward Club[1] | ||||||
| Fleet size | 6 | ||||||
| Destinations | 13 | ||||||
| Parent company | Pashtany Bank | ||||||
| Headquarters | Kabul, Afghanistan | ||||||
| Key people |
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| Website | flyariana.com | ||||||
Ariana Afghan Airlines Co. Ltd.,[a] also known simply asAriana, is theflag carrier and largestairline of Afghanistan.[3][4] Founded in 1955, Ariana isstate owned and the oldest airline in the country.[5] The company has its main base atKabul International Airport, from which it operates domestic flights and international connections to destinations inChina,India,Pakistan,Russia,Saudi Arabia,Turkey, and theUnited Arab Emirates. Thecarrier is headquartered inShāre Naw district,Kabul.[6][7] Ariana Afghan Airlines has been on thelist of air carriers banned in the European Union since October 2006 (2006-10)[update].
The airline was set up on 27 January 1955.[9] It was established asAryana Airlines with the assistance ofIndamer Co. Ltd., which initially held a 49% stake, and the government of Afghanistan owned the balance.[10] At the beginning, services were operated toBahrain,India,Iran, andLebanon, with a fleet of threeDouglas DC-3s.[10] In 1957,Pan American World Airways became the minor shareholder of the airline when it took over the 49% interest from Indamer.[11] Domestic scheduled services started the same year.[11] By April 1960 (1960-04), a fleet of threeDC-3s was being used for linking Kabul withAmritsar,Delhi,Jeddah, andKarachi, as well as with some points within Afghanistan, while a singleDC-4 operated the Kabul–Kandahar–Tehran–Damascus–Beirut–Ankara–Prague–Frankfurt service, the so-called "Marco Polo" route.[11] In the early 1960s,US$1,100,000 (equivalent to $12,000,000 in 2024) fromUS aid to Afghanistan was used to capitalise the company.[12]
By March 1970 (1970-03), the airline had 650 employees. At this time, the fleet comprised oneBoeing 727-100C, oneCV-440, one DC-3 and two Douglas DC-6s that worked on routes serving theMiddle East, India,Pakistan, theUSSR, andIstanbul, Frankfurt, andLondon.[13] Domestic services were then operated byBakhtar Alwatana, which was established by the government in 1967 for this purpose.[14]
The carrier's firstwidebody aircraft, aMcDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, entered the fleet in early October 1979 (1979-10).[16] By March 1985 (1985-03), the aircraft fleet consisted of the DC-10 and twoBoeing 727-100Cs.[17] In the mid-1980s, during theSoviet–Afghan War, the carrier was forced to sell the DC-10 toBritish Caledonian, as theSoviets wanted the carrier to fly theTupolev Tu-154 as a replacement.[15] In October 1985 (1985-10), Ariana was taken over byBakhtar Afghan Airlines, which became the country's newnational airline.[14][18] In 1986,Bakhtar ordered twoTupolev Tu-154Ms;[19] the airline took possession of these aircraft in April 1987 (1987-04).[18] In February 1988 (1988-02),Bakhtar was merged back intoAriana, thus creating an airline which could serve both short and long haul routes.[20][additional citation(s) needed]
Following thefall of Kabul to the Taliban in 1996 and the proclamation of theIslamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the country faced substantial economic sanctions from the international sector during the Taliban regime. The sanctions, along with the Taliban government's control of the company and the grounding of many of the carrier's international flights, had a devastating effect on the economic health of the company through the 1990s. The fleet was reduced to only a handful of Russian and Ukrainian builtAn-26s,Yakovlev Yak-40s and threeBoeing 727s, which were used on the longest domestic routes. In October 1996,Pakistan provided a temporary maintenance and operational base atKarachi. With no overseas assets, by 1999 Ariana's international operations consisted of flights toDubai only;[21] also, limited cargo flights continued intoChina's western provinces. However, sanctions imposed byUN Security Council Resolution 1267 in November 1999 forced the airline to suspend overseas operations.[22][23] In November 2001 (2001-11), Ariana was grounded completely.[24]
According to theLos Angeles Times:[25]
With the Taliban's blessing, Bin Laden effectively had hijacked Ariana, the national civilian airline of Afghanistan. For four years, according to former U.S. aides and exiled Afghan officials, Ariana's passenger and charter flights ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan. Members of Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network were provided false Ariana identification that gave them free run of airports in the Middle East.
According to people interviewed by theLos Angeles Times,Viktor Bout's companies helped in running the airline.[26]
Following the overthrow of the Taliban government duringOperation Enduring Freedom, Ariana began to rebuild its operations in December 2001 (2001-12).[29][30] About a month later, the UN sanctions were finally lifted, permitting the airline to resume international routes again.[31] In 2002, thegovernment of India gave the carrier a gift of three ex-Air IndiaAirbus A300s.[23][32][33] Ariana's first international passenger flight since 1999 landed atIndira Gandhi International Airport in January 2002 (2002-01),[34] followed by routes to Pakistan and Germany in June and October the same year, respectively.[35][36][37] In 2005,India signed an agreement on aviation cooperation with Afghanistan, with Air India training 50 officials for Ariana.[38]
Due to safety regulations, Ariana was mostly banned from flying intoEuropean Union airspace in March 2006 (2006-03), with theEuropean Commission allowing the carrier to fly only a singleFrance-registeredAirbus A310 into the member states;[39][40] the ban was extended to the entire fleet in October of that year.[41] The ban was confirmed in subsequent updates of the list released in late 2009 and March 2010 (2010-03).[42][43] In November 2010 (2010-11), all Afghanistan-registered aircraft were banned from operating in the European Union.[44][45] Ariana is still included in the list as of December 2024[update].[46]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(October 2025) |
All commercial flights were cancelled following the Taliban taking over the capital city of Kabul in August 2021.[47] Domestic flights resumed in September.[48]
As of September 2023[update], Ariana Afghan Airlines served five domestic and eight international destinations in Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, India, Pakistan, and China; most of the routes radiate from Kabul.[49]
As of August 2025[update] the Ariana Afghan Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft:[50]
| Aircraft | In fleet | Orders | Passengers[citation needed] | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Y | Total | ||||
| Airbus A310-300 | 3 | — | 12 | 230 | 230 | |
| Boeing 737-400 | 2 | — | 8 | 134 | 142 | |
| Boeing 737-500 | 1 | — | 8 | 148 | 156 | |
| Total | 6 | — | ||||
Ariana operated the following equipment all through its history:[51]
According toAviation Safety Network, as of October 2012[update] Ariana Afghan Airlines haswritten off 19 aircraft involved in 13 events, seven of them being deadly. Casualties totaled 154 deaths.[54] The following list includes occurrences that led to at least one fatality, resulted in a write-off of the aircraft involved, or both.
| Date | Location | Aircraft | Tail number | Aircraft damage | Fatalities | Description | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 November 1959 |  Greece | Douglas C-47A | YA-AAD | W/O | Unknown | Unknown | [55] |
| 21 November 1959 |  OffBeirut | DC-4 | YA-BAG | W/O | 24/27 | Crashed shortly aftertakeoff fromBeirut International Airport, during initial climbout. The aircraft was due to operate the second leg of an international scheduledFrankfurt–Beirut–Tehran–Kandahar–Kabul passenger service asFlight 202. | [56] |
| 5 January 1969 |  London | Boeing 727-100C | YA-FAR | W/O | 50 | Crashed on approach toLondon Gatwick Airport when attempting to land in dense fog as it descended below theglideslope. Forty-eight people were killed on the plane, as well as two on the ground. The aircraft was completing an international scheduled Kabul–Kandahar–Beirut–Istanbul–Frankfurt–London passenger service asFlight 701. | [57] |
| 15 January 1969 |  Kabul | Douglas C-47DL | YA-BAD | W/O | Unknown | Ground collision. | [58] |
| 10 December 1988 |  Pakistan | An-26 | Unknown | W/O | 25/25 | The aircraft was shot down byPakistani fighters when it was flying a domesticKhost–Kabul passenger service. | [59] |
| 18 June 1989 |  Zabol | An-26 | YA-BAK | W/O | 6/39 | Crashed into a hill when attempting to land atZabol Airport following an in-flight opening of the ramp door. The aircraft was operating a domestic scheduled Kabul–Zaranj passenger service. | [60] |
| 1 August 1992 |  Kabul | Tu-154M | YA-TAP | W/O | 0/0 | Destroyed by a rocket while sitting at Kabul Airport. | [61] |
| 28 August 1992 | Kabul | An-26 | YA-BAN | W/O | Unknown | [62] | |
| 11 September 1995 |  Jalalabad | An-26B | YA-BAO | W/O | 3/46 | The aircraft was completing a domestic scheduled Kabul–Jalalabad passenger service when it apparentlyran out of fuel, crashing on approach toJalalabad Airport. | [63] |
| 29 October 1997 |  Jalalabad | Yak-40 | YA-KAE | W/O | 1 | Crashed on landing at Jalalabad Airport. | [64] |
| 19 March 1998 | Charasyab | Boeing 727-200 | YA-FAZ | W/O | 45/45 | Crashed in bad weather into mountainous terrain on approach toKabul Airport. It was completing the last leg of an international non-scheduledSharjah–Kabul–Kandahar passenger service. | [65][66] |
| October 2001 | Kabul | An-12B | YA-DAA | W/O | 0/0 | Destroyed during a U.S. bombing raid. | [67] |
| An-12BK | YA-DAB | W/O | 0/0 | [68] | |||
| An-24 | Unknown | W/O | 0/0 | [69] | |||
| An-24B | YA-DAH | W/O | 0/0 | [70] | |||
| An-24RV | YA-DAJ | W/O | 0/0 | [71] | |||
| Boeing 727-100C | YA-FAU | W/O | 0/0 | [72] | |||
| Boeing 727-100C | YA-FAW | W/O | 0/0 | [73] | |||
| 23 March 2007 |  Istanbul | A300B4-200 | YA-BAD | W/O | 0 | Overran the runway on landing atIstanbul Atatürk Airport. | [27][28][74] |
| 8 May 2014 |  Kabul | Boeing 737-4Y0 | YA-PIB | W/O | 0 | Slid off the runway on landing atKabul Airport. | [75] |
Kabul-basedSafi is the country's No. 2 airline after national carrier Ariana Afghan Airlines.
the Biden administration indirectly purchases plane tickets in bulk from Ariana Afghan Airlines, the country's state-owned airline
US sources say that of about £1.7 million US aid to Afghanistan, £1.1 million went into the airline.
Ariana Afghan Airlines took delivery of its first widebodied airliner, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, on October 5.
Afghanistan has bought two Tupolev Tu-154Ms to replace the McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30s sold in the West after Soviet pressure. Bakhtar Afghan Airlines president Muhammad Fedawi and chief pilot Salaam Nadran took delivery of the aircraft in late April. Bakhtar absorbed Ariana two years ago, and is now the sole Afghan carrier.
Bakhtar Airlines, the Afghani flag carrier, has ordered two Tupolev Tu-154s. The carrier has also just taken delivery of two new Antonov An-26 aircraft which will be put into operation soon. Bakhtar currently flies two Boeing 727s, two An-26s, and two An-24s, two Yak-40s and a Twin Otter on 19 domestic and six international routes.
The Afghan airline, Ariana, flies only to the United Arab Emirates; India and Saudi Arabia have stopped flights. Taliban officials say they have no overseas assets.
Ariana Afghan Airlines has resumed services between Kabul and Frankfurt, via Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and Istanbul, after a break of 20 years. It has also selected Sharjah as its hub for Middle Eastern and European operations.
Media related toAriana Afghan Airlines at Wikimedia Commons| Airlines ofAfghanistan | |
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