Who wants to fly over Taliban-held Afghanistan? New FAA rules allow it, but planes largely avoid it
World
Who wants to fly over Taliban-held Afghanistan? New FAA rules allow it, but planes largely avoid it
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two years after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the United States has begun easing rules that could allow commercial airlines to fly over the country in routes that cut time and fuel consumption for East-West travel.
But those shortened flight routes for India and Southeast Asia raise questions never answered during the Taliban’s previous rule from the 1990s to the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
How, if at all, do you deal with the Taliban as they block women from schools and jobs, and engage in behavior described by United Nations experts as potentially akin to “gender apartheid?” Can airlines manage the risk of flying in uncontrolled airspace over a country where an estimated 4,500 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft weapons still lurk? And what happens if you have an emergency and need to land suddenly?
Who wants to fly over such a country? The OPSGroup, an organization for the aviation industry, recently offered a simple answer: “No one!”
