Now You Can Go to Iraq for Fun!

Having trouble finding a reliable way to get to Iraq these days? Well, fret no more. Austrian Airlines is here to help.

Yesterday (December 11) marked the beginning of Austrian’s twice weekly service between Vienna and Erbil in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The flights are operated by Airbus A319 aircraft and a third weekly flight will be added in March. These are the only passenger flights flying to Iraq except for limited regional Iraqi Airways service.

As you can see on this map (from globalsecurity.org), Erbil lies in the middle of the Kurdistan region, far in the north of Iraq. This area is much more stable than other parts of Iraq, so that explains why Austrian feels comfortable flying a plane into the airport there.

And the Kurds are pretty excited about it as well as shown in this press release from the regional government. There has been a big effort on their part to distance Kurdistan from the violence in other parts of Iraq lately. They even have an advertising campaign called “Kurdistan – The Other Iraq.” You can watch the commercials and learn more here if you’re really interested in what I would consider to be a true adventure.

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