During the pandemic, many countries saw airline routes be stripped bare and the amount of airlines flying to certain places plummeted. Apart from Qatar Airways nearly every single airline company worldwide decreased routes and made a loss during the years of the pandemic.
Afghanistan was not spared from this, and since NATO left and the Taliban officially took over it has taken longer than other places for international airlines to return. Until recently, the only way to get to Afghanistan was on limited services mainly from Dubai with Ariana Afghan Airlines, Kam Air, and later Turkish Airlines from Istanbul.
Thankfully, for Afghans and people wishing to visit this beautiful and misunderstood country, this has now changed!
Fly Dubai now has several daily routes from Dubai and Air Arabia has also re-entered the market with flights also now operating from Sharjah. Not only does this mean that there are many more options for times to fly into Kabul but also increased competition in the market has seen a lowering in prices. Usually, you’d expect to pay around USD 650 or more for a return flight from Dubai to Kabul. Now searches online can find this same route for as low as USD 450!
Not only have more airlines entered the game again, but routes to different countries have also increased with direct flights internationally to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, Pakistan, India, China, Uzbekistan, Iran, Kuwait, and Russia (however this is set to end in May).
from Afghanistan’s other large cities, Mazar-i-sharif and Kandahar flights to international destinations have also increased.
Domestic air travel in the country is still taking a while to get back to what it was with still no direct flights to Mazar-i-Sharif from Kandahar. Nearly all domestic flights have to transit in Kabul and there are still no flights operating to Bamiyan.
Hopefully, this trend continues and the people of Afghanistan and those that want to visit for business or travel will have more options in the near future!
