PIA Boeing 737-300 at picturesque Skardu Airport - Abbas Ali Collection
By M Ismail Khan
Our national flag carrier has the singular distinction of flying Boeing 737 aircraft to Skardu -- the gateway to what international tourists call the 'throne room of mountain gods'. On paper it is a daily 45 minute flight from Islamabad to Skardu but in actuality it is once a week or sometimes a few flights a month business with perhaps highest flight cancellation ratio of a Boeing 737 domestic flight in the world.
Only last week PK 451 was cancelled for five consecutive days, making life difficult for the tourists, army personnel, patients, students and local families who rely on it. This becomes especially frustrating when the only road connecting Skardu with the outside world is also blocked by avalanches and flash floods, which is the case more often during the monsoon season.
The standard excuse for cancellation offered by PIA and the Civil Aviation Authority is bad weather, but in reality there are many other reasons because of which travellers to Pakistan's most gifted mountain region suffer. Among them are poor flight scheduling, limited number of aircraft, absence of a landing guidance system and a dearth of experienced pilots.
Skardu has perhaps one of the most picturesque airports in the world, sandwiched between the Karakoram in the north and the Himalayas to its south. The plane lands amidst a magical mix of sand dunes, meadows, terraced orchards and the Indus quietly flowing nearby. The airport's catchments users include about half a million indigenous Balti communities, army personnel stationed in Siachen, Kargil and Gultari sectors and domestic and international tourists. Baltistan contains a number of high mountains including world's second highest K2 (locally known as Chogori).
It also houses some of the world's largest alpine glaciers, rich minerals and diverse flora and fauna. Every year thousands of trekker, mountaineers, naturists and tourists interested in mountain culture, people and wilderness visit the area. Domestic tourists, especially families returning to Pakistan from North America and Europe, have also started to explore the region.
Most domestic and international tourists to Baltistan prefer to travel by air as it enables them to spend more time travelling within their destination area. But the locals, if not pressed by emergencies, normally opt for road travel. Steep rise in airfare during recent years has placed air travel beyond their reach.
Skardu airport has the country's longest runway (about 4 km) and perhaps the smallest passenger-handling facilities. The passenger lounges were built in the early 1980s mainly to serve the requirement of 40-seat Fokker aircraft. However, for the last two decades PIA has been plying 118-seat Boeing 737s on the route without any major improvement in the facilities. The concern authorities need to look at possibilities of restoring the nearby abandoned airstrip for commercial flights and leave the longish runway for the air force.
Skardu is the most porous valley in the whole of Northern Areas. There is no other airport in the region which could provide landing capacity to all type of civil and military aircraft. It is an important airport from a defence point of view because there are no other appropriate landing strips in the region which can cater to the defence requirement of the Karakoram Highway and the Line of Control. In the past there has been a demand for converting it into an international airport and for connections with China and other big Pakistani and South Asian cities.
Tour operators have also been urging the government to open the airport for direct chartered flights from Europe, Japan and Korea which are leading tourist generating countries to the Northern Areas. This, they think, can give a major boost to the prospects of adventure tourism in Pakistan and help bring in much needed foreign exchange earnings. Many Pakistani private airline companies have also expressed interest in operating flights to and from the Skardu airport.
However, before making a move for upgrading the airport, the concerned authorities should explore means and ways to reduce the rate of flight cancellations. A few years back, President Musharraf, inaugurating a cadet college in Skardu had advised the Civil Aviation Authority to install a state-of-the-art instrumental landing facility at the airport so that an all weather landing capacity could be instituted.
Experts believe that the equipment, once installed, can vastly improve the safety and frequency of landing. The equipment, they insist, is not expensive and can be easily procured through the Civil Aviation Authority's own budget. In case, the authority is not in a position to foot the bill, the funds can be arranged from the annual development budget of the region, or maybe the Pakistan Air Force can chip in with contribution.
The grounding of the Fokker aircraft has also created scheduling problems, particularly in the socio-economic sectors. The 737s are busy birds these days. PIA needs to consult meteorologists and climate experts when scheduling flights in the mountain areas. The ideal clime for flight in summer for places like, Chitral, Gilgit and Skardu is early morning. Currently the flight time to and from Skardu is almost mid-noon which is least suitable for high altitude flights.
Flying in the high mountain area is no easy task. Only the best pilots can negotiate the twists and turns of Karakoram and the Himalayas. PIA no doubt has some of the best pilots when it comes to high altitude flights and landings. It should dedicate better pilots for difficult routes like Skardu. All passengers travelling to and back from Skardu have advance reservation a day before the departure. Every flight cancellation heavily costs the passengers, the airline and the CAA.
The passengers have to travel to the airport (distance from Skardu city to the airport is about 18 km). The cancellations also builds nerve wrecking pressure on the sales and ground staff who have to deal with the patwari, the deputy commissioner, army officers, ministers and their relatives, other notables and pressure groups like doctors, journalists and lawyers, each expecting preferential treatment in having their tickets confirmed. There are tourists who need to catch connecting flights, there are sick and elderly needing urgent medical attention, students who need to get back on time for exams. One good way to reduce the pressure is to increase the number of flights which is not the case at the moment.
Source: The News
