OK, this space should be occupied by a visualisation showing time series of airlines in the Viktorfeed by week, which ought to show what happened to BGIA’s share of the business. But IBM ManyEyes is down or at least not up, the data hardly fits on an OpenOffice spreadsheet in any sensible way, so you’ll have to wait.
However, I would like to say this: what is happening in Zahedan that needs several Ilyushin-76s a day, provided by companies like Click Airways International/Click Airways, Transaviaexport, Eastern Express, Sakavia, and East Wing? Rather, that has been generating 2-4 inbound flights to Sharjah a day for 10 days? That’s 30 rotations; 40 tons payload a time; 1,200 tons of stuff. Eh?
Wikipedia has it a bigger place than I assumed; apparently work is going on to link up the Pakistani and Iranian railways there. But surely nobody exports bricks or livestock feed (key local industries, apparently) by air? Especially when there is a road straight to a major sea port?
At a guess: smuggling. People and goods. Zahedan’s been a smuggling town for decades.
It would be fascinating to know whether all those flights are taking stuff into Zahedan or bringing it out.
Well, the great bulk are coming *in* to the UAE; in the same period there have only been four or so outbounds.
I wasn’t aware it was such a big place, either; over 500,000 people. And the airfield is huge! Rwy 17/35 is 13,993x148ft – that’s 2,000 feet longer than either of the 09/27s at Heathrow.
Every fule knows Iran/Pakistan is the Next Big Thing.. Makes sense that your XML-Borne Early Warning System would pick up on this.
Not sure as to the actual things going in or coming out, but my ears twitch lately at anything that links these 2 countries. Would seem obvious that the next phase of The Great Game needs to tie together Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
So you can tell that the flights are coming into Sharjah full and returning to Zahedan empty? Or am I misunderstanding you?
I can’t tell if they are full; I can tell, however, that they aren’t going out from Dubai or Sharjah *to* Zahedan. They are coming from somewhere else to Zahedan, then going to the UAE.
Ah, gotcha. Sounds like we need someone on the ground with a long lens in that case.
Specialized equipment of a kind available in the Gulf–building a pumping station for the big Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline? (Perhaps not unconnected with the string of Zahedan bombings)
No, because they’re going Zahedan-UAE, not UAE-Zahedan.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Photographic_evidence_of_Sudanese_arms_embargo_violations:_UN_Panel_of_Experts_on_the_Sudan:_Mid-term_Briefing_During_Extended_Mandate_of_the_Panel_under_SCR_1713%2C_10_Apr_2007
Some pretty pictures of planes you might recognise?