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Orient Airways Ltd. was an airline established in 1946 with a base in Calcutta, India. It was the first and only Muslim owned airline in pre-partition India.

History

The airline was registered in Calcutta, British India on 23 October 1946. It was established on the behest of Muhammad Ali Jinnah by Muslim business families. The initial investment was provided by the Ispahani, Adamjee, and the Arag group. Mirza Ahmad Ispahani, being its first Chairman, and Air Vice Marshal O.K. Carter, the General Manager, obtained an operating licence on May 1947. Four Douglas DC-3s were obtained from Tempo, Texas in February 1947 and operations first started on 4 June 1947. The designated route was Kolkata-Sittwe (then known as Akyab)-Yangon (Myanmar), which also happened to be the first post-war international operation to be flown by an airline registered in India. Two months after Orient Airways' operational beginnings, Pakistan was created on 14 August 1947.

Orient Airways, along with the help of some BOAC aircraft which had been chartered by the Government of Pakistan, started relief operations and transportation of the population between Delhi and Karachi, the capitals of India a Pakistan, respectively. Later, Orient Airways transferred its base to Pakistan and established the vital link between Karachi and Dhaka (Dacca), the two capitals of the two wings of Pakistan. With a skeleton fleet of just two DC-3s, three crew and twelve mechanics, Orient Airways re-launched its scheduled operations in a fairy-tale fashion. The initial routes were Karachi-Lahore-Peshawar, Karachi-Quetta-Lahore, Faisalabad and Karachi-Delhi-Kolkata-Dhaka. By the end of 1949, Orient Airways had acquired 10 DC-3s and 3 Convair 240s which it operated on these routes. In 1950, it had become increasingly apparent that additional capacity would have to be inducted in order to cater to the growing needs of the sub-continent.

On 11 March 1955, the government of Pakistan merged Orient Airways with other airlines to form Pakistan International Airlines.

Livery

Orient Airways aircraft had a green strip with the word "Orient Airways" or "Orient Skyliner". The tail was marked with the flag of Pakistan after the parition of India.

See also

• Adamjee Group
• Mirza Ahmad Ispahani
• Pakistan International Airlines

References

This article uses bare URLs, which are uninformative and vulnerable to link rot. Please consider converting them to full citations to ensure the article remains verifiable and maintains a consistent citation style. Several templates and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as reFill (documentation) and Citation bot (documentation). (August 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

1. Formation of Muslim-owned economic institutions: 1940-1947
2. "Image Detail for - http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac5/ROW%20Asia/AP-AEF.jpg". Images.search.yahoo.com. Retrieved 4 March 2012. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)

• Articles with bare URLs for citations from August 2011
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• Defunct airlines of Pakistan
• Airlines established in 1946
• Airlines disestablished in 1955
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