Abbas Ali wrote:One of my favourite photos of PIA Boeing 737-340 at Skardu Airport.
Abbas
From the aircraft livery and vegetation around the rwy, I think it is taking off from old rwy 15. The new 12,000 ft new rwy is tawards east and is surrounded by sand dunes.
Have fond memories from this place. The arrival of PIA flight especially in winters was sort of a festival. We would get latest newspapers, some letters from home plus lot of new faces in the place.
The names of PIA pilots were known to local folks, alongwith the probability of flight landing with a particular pilot at the controls. Adil, Shigri, Siraj few names i remember, thie landing quotient, I won't disclose.
Interesting info - thank you for sharing.
Somewhere I have an old photo of a business jet probably a Dassault Falcon departing or landing at Skardu Airport in late 70s or very early 80s.
Abbass, in 90s when army was looking for a jet, a number of small corporate jets were flown to skardu as part of evaluation procedures. Citation V, Learjet 35, Beechjet400 and Piagio Turboprob (pusher) are a few i recall. Later an A319 also landed at skardu airflield. Lately PAF's G-IV and fatima group's CJ-3 are also known to have landed at Skardu.
I found smaller version of the business jet photo at Skardu in this 1978 advertisement of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) promoting Skardu as a tourist destination.
I have a better and larger version of that photo but unable to find it at the moment.
I think atrs were assigned to the skardu route because of the sudden shortage of 737s.
With 9 320s in fleet, I think jet service on the route can be reinstated.