Pamir Airways - History

History

As the first private airline in the history of the country, Pamir Airways was issued an Air Operator's Certificate in 1994 by the authorities then in charge of civil aviation in the Islamic State of Afghanistan. Flight operations were launched in 1995 with an initial fleet of one Boeing 707-300 and two Antonov An-12 aircraft.

In April 2008, Pamir Airways was taken over by a group of Afghan businessmen under the leadership of Sherkhan Farnood, the president of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce & Industries and former chairman of Kabul Bank, who subsequently became chairman of the airline. Following the investment, Pamir Airways received a loan for $98 million from Kabul Bank, which was later exposed as one having indescribly poor lending standards (e.g. little to no interest required, no collateral required and repayment essentially optional) An effort was made to re-organize the Pamir assets, including its aging fleet of grounded planes, which could not be sold at high enough prices to reclaim the funds, though. As a consequence, the license of the airline was withdrawn, officially due to the poor safety record on 19 March 2011.