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Qatar Airways is carrying passengers aboard the first international commercial aircraft to take off from Kabul airport since the US withdrawal.
The first international commercial plane has taken off from Kabul airport since Western countries completed evacuations from Afghanistan 10 days ago, with a senior Qatari official saying the airport is “fully operational”.
The airport is “about 90% ready for operations but it is scheduled to reopen gradually,” Mutlaq al-Qahtani, Qatar’s special envoy to Afghanistan, said from the tarmac on Thursday.
“This is a historic day in the history of Afghanistan because the Kabul airport is fully operational. We were faced with enormous challenges… but now we can say that the airport is fit for navigation, ”he said.
The Qatar Airways plane arrived in Kabul on Thursday with assistance. He left for Doha, Qatar with passengers, including a large group of foreigners on board.
Qatari officials said earlier that the Afghan Taliban government would allow between 100 and 150 Westerners, including Americans, to leave Kabul in the next few hours.
Qatari and Turkish technical teams have helped restore operations at the airport, which was damaged in the chaotic evacuations of tens of thousands to meet the August 31 withdrawal deadline for US troops.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid thanked Qatar for its help in making the airport operational and for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
“In the very near future, the airport will be ready for all kinds of flights, including commercial flights,” he said, standing next to Qatari officials on the airport tarmac.
Passengers sit inside the departure terminal before boarding the Qatar Airways flight at Kabul Airport [Wakil Kohsar/AFP]Passenger theft
Al-Qahtani said earlier that the Qatar Airways plane would be the first international commercial flight to depart from Kabul airport since the departure of US forces in late August.
“Call it what you want, a charter flight or a commercial flight, everyone has tickets and boarding passes,” al-Qahtani said from the tarmac, adding that another flight would take off on Friday. “I hope life will return to normal in Afghanistan.”
Aviation analyst Alex Macheras told Al Jazeera it was a charter flight.
“This is not a commercial flight on which the airline sells tickets for [inaudible] pay passengers… within a schedule, ”he said,
“Instead, the airline has been paid for by the government, which, in coordination with other governments, offers almost relief tickets if you will, to those who are stranded by operating individual charter flights and specials. We see this all over the world when there is bad weather in certain places, when the airlines go bankrupt, etc.
The departure of a large group of Americans, a first since the US withdrawal, would also signal that US officials have reached an arrangement with the new Taliban leadership.
In recent days, there had been a standoff between the Taliban and the organizers of several charter planes who had hoped to evacuate Americans and Afghans at risk from an airport in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Taliban said they would let passengers with valid travel documents leave, but many of those at the airport in northern Afghanistan did not have such papers.
Following the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from the country following the troop withdrawal, extensive damage at Kabul airport has raised questions as to when the transport hub could resume. for commercial flights.
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