As a result of the Pakistani Pathan community’s boycott of Pakistan International Airlines Corporation, Balkh is established at Peshawar in January 1997 to provide them with transportation. Ownership is uncertain; however, the company is equipped with a single Boeing 727-200.
Revenue services commence on April 1 from Peshawar to New Delhi, Tashkent, and Mashad. In early May, an agreement is signed with the Abu Dhabi Department of Civil Aviation and, during the third week of the month, twice-weekly roundtrips are inaugurated via Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan. A third service to Abu Dhabi is initiated in June.
The enterprise does not make it into the established airline directories and information on its subsequent activities, particularly in light of the UN sanctions imposed on Afghanistan in late 1999, is unknown.
BALL: United States (1927-1930). McKeesport, Pennsylvania automobile dealer and aviation buff, Clifford Ball, who, together with friends has purchased Pittsburgh-McKeesport Airport (Bettis Field), bid on U. S. Post Office Contract Airmail Route No. 11 (CAM-11) from Pittsburgh to Cleveland. After winning the contract late in 1926, Ball establishes an airline bearing his name, hires two pilots and a mechanic, and purchases three WACO 9 biplanes, which he christens Miss McKeesport, Miss Pittsburgh, and Miss Youngstown.
After waiting out a miserable Ohio Valley winter, pilot Dewey Noyes, flying the Miss Pittsburgh, inaugurates CAM-11 via Youngstown and Akron on April 21, 1927. Carrying relatively small sacks, the three aircraft maintain services without serious accident during the next eight months. By December 31, they have transported 2,740 pounds of mail.
Two Pitcairn PA-5 Mailwings are purchased from their Philadelphia area manufacturer in January 1928. Later in the spring, two new
Fairchild FC-2 cabin monoplanes are acquired and, on May 1, are employed to inaugurate passenger service between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Athird FC-2 is received new in August and assigned to the Pennsylvania-Ohio service.
The company is reequipped with speedy Travel Air 4000 biplanes later in the fall, along with a Ryan B-1 Brougham employed exclusively for mail. For the year, a total of 725 passengers are carried along with 54,582 pounds of mail over 84,850 miles.
En route to Pittsburgh from Cleveland, a Travel Air 4000, out of fuel, attempts to land on a mountaintop field at Morgantown, West Virginia, on January 31, 1929, and crashes (one dead). Three Fairchild 71s and four New Standard D-27 mailplanes are purchased in April. In May, the former are employed to inaugurate regularly scheduled passenger services over the Allegheny mountains to Washington, D. C. Running into bad weather over Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, on October 21, pilot Harry Sievers tucks his mail bag under his arm and parachutes from his New Standard D-27; the plane crashes.
Operations continue for 10 months in 1930. On November 1, Ball is purchased by Pittsburgh Aviation Industries Corporation and renamed Pennsylvania Air Lines. Previous routes and operations are maintained.
World History
