ARBIL, (Southern Kurdistan), July 21 (AFP)The first flight of a Kurdish-owned
airline landed in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on Thursday, linking one of
the main cities in the heart of Kurdistan to Dubai.
The sole airplane belonging to the nascent Kurdistan Airlines, a Boeing 737,
landed at 10:30 am (0630 GMT) carrying 46 Iraqi and Kurdish businessmen.
The Arbil airport was officially inaugurated on April 15. Another airport
equipped for passenger planes in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah opened for
business on Wednesday.
The recently-created Kurdistan Airlines is entirely owned by the autonomous
Kurdish regional government, said Rachad Omar, the region's "vice-minister" of
transport and communications.
"It has full support from the civil aviation directorate," a branch of the
Iraqi ministry of transportation, Omar told AFP.
"It is an Iraqi-owned company just like (government-owned) Iraqi Airways,"
said Omar, adding that the company plans to hire more passenger airplanes for
flights to Europe.
Currently both Iraqi Airlines and a Lebanese airline, Flying Carpet, offer
flights between Baghdad and Arbil.
"It is an historic day because it is the first time there is a direct flight
linking a foreign country to Arbil airport," said Haidar Faili, the autonomous
Kurdish region's minister for transportation and communication.
On Wednesday Iraqi President Jalal Talbani, who is also the head of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), inaugurated Sulaimaniyah airport, located
some 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Arbil.
An Iraqi Airways plane landed at the airport bringing home an official Iraqi
delegation from a visit to Jordan that included Planning Minister Barham Saleh.
There are two passenger airports in the autonomous Kurdish region because of
the rivalry between the two main Kurdish parties.
