Picture of the Day: Flying Karachi to Baghdad

Posted on December 5, 2006
Filed Under >> Owais Mughal, Picture of the day, History
8 Comments
Total Views: 6605

Owais Mughal

We at ATP like rickshaws and tongas; but we like flying machines too; and not just those from PIA.

Here is a picture of a Handley-Page biplane of UK’s Imperial Airways which was used as a weekly air service between Karachi and Baghdad in 1932. This particular photo shows this plane at a stopover in Kuwait on its way from Karachi to Baghdad in 1934.

Imperial airways was established in UK on March 31, 1924 and it established its first route between UK and India by an inuagural flight between London and Karachi on March 30th, 1929. By 1933 it was running a weekly service between Karachi and London.

More information on Imperial Airways can be found here. I found this photo at flickr.

8 comments posted

  1. Samdani says:
    December 5th, 2006 12:53 am

    What a fantastic find.

    The world was more global then maybe than now.

  2. Mariam says:
    December 5th, 2006 1:08 am

    Wow!

  3. TURAB says:
    December 5th, 2006 1:11 am

    Great find!

  4. TURAB says:
    December 5th, 2006 2:21 am

    on the side note ASIF n SHOBI ARE FREE!!! YEAY!!
    and BOOOO PCB!

  5. December 5th, 2006 5:23 am

    Yes British knew how to control its colonies and do better trade, for that they (needed and) developed all type of logistics and transportation system.

  6. December 5th, 2006 5:25 pm

    Owais: Any idea how many passengers did it fit? How long was the flight(in hours)? and how much leg room did the passengers have? :)

  7. Owais Mughal says:
    December 5th, 2006 11:13 pm

    Bilal

    ‘leg room’ ka to pata nahiN but these planes could carry upto 40 people in their belly. The floor was wall to wall carpeted :), air hostesses served dribks and passenger cabins had sound proofing done on them.

  8. Hasan Mir says:
    December 9th, 2006 2:57 pm

    Nice find, here’s an unlikely source of more information detailiing the routes taken at that time to reach Karachi from London and onwards to Australia/Newzealand.

    http://www.nzstamps.fsnet.co.uk/air/external/easte rn/easternroute.html


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