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Since
1954, PIA has flown many popular and famous passenger aircraft
types. These aircraft include Lockheed L-1049 Super
Constellation, DC-3 Dakota, Convair CV-240, Vickers Viscount
815, Boeing 707, Boeing 720, Hawker Siddeley HS.121 Trident 1E, McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30
and Fokker F27 Friendship
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Airbus A300B4-203 (Abbas Ali
Collection) |
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This
photo taken at Toulouse Airport, France, shows PIA's very
first brand new Airbus A300B4-203 undergoing pre-delivery
checks. Here the A300 is sporting pre-delivery test flight
French registration F-WZEP and it was delivered to PIA as AP-BAX
on March 3, 1980. AP-BAX was one of four brand new A300s ordered
by PIA in late 1970s and all these four aircraft were delivered
to PIA in 1980. Later, PIA added some used A300s and the airline
at one stage had more than ten A300s in its fleet. PIA flew A300s mainly on its Middle East, South Asia and Far
East route network. During their early years with PIA, the A300s
were also used on airline's flights to various European
destinations such as Paris, Frankfurt, Athens and Rome. A300s
also saw heavy service on PIA's domestic route network
connecting city of Karachi with Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and
Quetta. PIA also used A300s for Hajj flights from Pakistan to
Jeddah. The airline's last active A300s were withdrawn from use
in first half of year 2005 after their participation in Hajj
flights operation that year |
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de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 (Abbas
Ali
Collection) |
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This photo shows brand new de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter
300
(AP-AWK) in Canada before its delivery to PIA on February 17,
1971. AP-AWK was one of six brand new Twin Otters delivered to
PIA between November 1970 and March 1971. A number of these Twin Otters were deployed
to serve remote areas in East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh)
especially on routes which the airline had started with Sikorsky
S-61N helicopter service. Twin Otters with their Short Take-Off
and
Landing (STOL) capability were suitable for short runways in smaller towns
in East Pakistan. With the separation of East Pakistan after the
war of 1971, the fleet of Twin Otters became surplus for PIA and
in October 1972 the airline sold it surviving fleet of five Twin Otters to a
French operator - one Twin Otter was lost on ground during enemy
air-raid in East Pakistan during 1971 war. PIA became Twin Otter
once again when it inducted two of these aircraft in 1985. Twin
Otters have long been a common sight wherever a sturdy STOL
aircraft is needed and Pakistan's mountainous areas are just
such an area. PIA
Twin Otters were used to connect Islamabad with
cities of Rawalakot and Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir. The
airline also used Twin Otters
to connect Islamabad with Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan and
Mianwali. With Twin Otter flights, Peshawar was linked with Bannu and
Parachinar, the capital of Kurram Agency in Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The Twin Otter service to
Parachinar, inaugurated in 1993, was historic in nature because
it air-linked FATA with the rest of the Pakistan for the first
time in country's history. Twin Otters were also offered by PIA on
charter basis to various companies especially oil & gas
exploration companies. In following years, a number of routes
flown with Twin Otter were suspended by PIA and the airline sold
its two Twin Otters to an American company in September 2006 |
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Douglas DC-3 Dakota (Abbas
Ali
Collection) |
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This photo shows AP-ABB in early version of 1960s livery with
green PIA logo on all-white tail. A total of thirteen Douglas DC-3
Dakotas flew for PIA from 1955 to mid-1960s and except two (AP-AGG
& AP-AJH) all other eleven DC-3s were ex-Orient Airways
aircraft that became part of PIA fleet after the merger of two
airlines on March 11, 1955. In West Pakistan, the legendry DC-3
was used on routes such as Karachi-Lahore-Karachi and
Karachi-Lahore-Rawalpindi-Peshawar. In West Pakistan's north,
the DC-3 was used to air-link remote areas such as Gilgit and
Skardu with
Rawalpindi, Chitral with Peshawar and in south the dependable
aircraft was used to link Mekran coastal areas such as Pasni
with Karachi. In East Pakistan, the DC-3 was used on routes such
as Dacca-Chittagong-Dacca and Dacca-Jessore-Dacca. PIA also used
its DC-3s for international flights. From West Pakistan, the
DC-3 operated Karachi-Delhi flight and from East Pakistan the
DC-3 flew Dacca-Calcutta and Chittagong-Rangoon flights.
On March 25, 1961, PIA started a DC-3 'Airbus' service in East
Pakistan. The service offered fares that were competitive or
even less than those of railways in some cases. PIA did not
demand government subsidy for the service and used funds from
profit made by the airline on other services to operate DC-3
'Airbus' service in East Pakistan. The ground arrangements were
simple, there were no reservations and passengers had to make
their own way to the 'bus-stops'. The amenities on board were
austere without meals and reading material but the service
offered a generous baggage allowance. Later the PIA DC-3
'Airbus' service was replaced with
Sikorsky S-61N helicopter service in November 1963.
PIA
DC-3 operations were not without accidents, the airline lost a
total of five DC-3 aircraft due to air accidents in different
parts of the country's both East and West wings. The induction
of new Fokker F27 Friendship Mark 200 aircraft in 1961 in PIA
fleet began
gradual decline in airline's Dakota operations. In 1961/62 PIA sold a
number of its DC-3s to various customers including AP-ABB which
was purchased by Royal Nepal Airlines in July 1962. Some of
DC-3s remained in service with PIA for few more years and last
of these aircraft was phased out in 1967 |
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Sikorsky S-61N (Leonardo
Pinzauti
Collection) |
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This photo from Leonardo's collection shows PIA S-61N helicopter
(AP-AOA) at Faridpur Heliport in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
For short-haul operations in East Pakistan's delta region, based
on Dacca, PIA set up a network of scheduled helicopter routes,
using three amphibious twin-turbine Sikorsky S-61Ns which were delivered
between October 1963 and February 1964. The first revenue flight
took place on November 25, 1963, the first routes being to
Khulna, center of the East Pakistan jute industry, and to Faridpur.
The PIA S-61Ns were configured to carry a total of 24 passengers
with four crew members and 1,800lb of cargo. PIA's first five
pilots selected for helicopter training completed their
conversion training at British European Airways (BEA) training
facility at Kidlington near Oxford where they learnt to fly
Brantly B-2 light helicopter. They then converted to S-61N at
Sikorsky's factory in Connecticut and returned to Pakistan for
route flying on a Hiller UH-12E4 before delivery of the S-61Ns.
The value of this new mode of transport lay in the
time saved, the 80-mile journey to Khulna, for example, taking
21 hours by surface travel and just 37 minutes by the
helicopter. Faridpur, only 36 miles from Dacca, derived even
greater advantage by the reduction of journey time from 22 hours
to 17 minutes! More than 20 points were served as the complete
fleet became available. These services had to be switched to
fixed wing aircraft in 1967 after two accidents reduced the
S-61N fleet from three to one, although by this time traffic had
developed to a more worthwhile level to favor the construction
of runways for fixed wing aircraft operations |
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