Dera Ismail Khan Airport or D. I. Khan Airport is situated 10 km away from the city centre of

Dera Ismail Khan Dera Ismail Khan (; bal, , Urdu and skr, , ps, ډېره اسماعيل خان), abbreviated as D.I. Khan, is a city and capital of Dera Ismail Khan District, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the 37th largest city of Pakistan ...

, a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the northwestern region of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ...

province of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. This is the only airport besides Bannu Airport that connects the southern districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with other parts of the country. The airport operations have remained suspended for a long time for various reasons.

History

Dera Ismail Khan airport was closed following the start of the Afghan-US war in 2001 for unspecified reasons. After six years, a plan to reopen the airport was made when a delegation from the district visited

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...

. The reopening was stated to cost around Rs4 million, which was spent on repairing the runway and the renovation and repair of the terminal building.

Pakistan International Airlines Pakistan International Airlines ( ur, ; abbreviated PIA, ur, ) is an international airline that serves as the national flag carrier of Pakistan under the administrative control of the Secretary to the Government of Pakistan for Aviation. It ...

(PIA) was the sole operator at the airport, providing feeder services between

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

, Zhob,

Multan Multan (; ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan, on the bank of the Chenab River. Multan is Pakistan's seventh largest city as per the 2017 census, and the major cultural, religious and economic centre of southern Punjab. Multan is one of the List ...

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

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Fokker Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names. It was founded in 1912 in Berlin, Germany, and became famous for its fighter aircraft in World War I. In 1919 ...

F-27 aircraft. With the reopening plans, the CAA decided to upgrade the airport which would eventually facilitate the initiation of international flights for the people of the area working abroad and the business community. The first flight was expected to be launched on 27 October 2008 to Islamabad via Peshawar. However, the efforts to operationalize the airport have taken many years. In mid-2022, the Senate Standing Committee on Aviation was still considering matters related to the revival of the Dera Ismail Khan Airport. The committee was briefed that ‘large flights’ could not land on the airport’s runway, which was especially designed for ATR planes. The body urged the government to ensure that it served the people of Pakistan and “reviving this airport will be a huge service to them”.

Structure

Dera Ismail Khan airport is not as large as most of the other airports in

, as it caters mainly to the population of Dera Ismail Khan. The airport runway is only suitable for smaller aircraft such as Fokker and ATR. The airport is currently not able to handle larger aircraft such as Boeing and Airbus. There is currently one runway denoted 12 and 30. It is near Chashma road. Chashma road starts from Sheikh Yousif Chowk towards Kokar, Paharpur, Bilot Sharif and approximately 80 kilometers to Chashma Atomic Plant near Mianwali.

Airlines and destinations

There are currently no airlines serving the airport.

References

External links

* Airports in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Dera Ismail Khan District {{Pakistan-airport-stub

History

Structure

Airlines and destinations

See also

References

External links