The High Economic Council led by President Ashraf Ghani has awarded a license to a Turkish airline company, Global Atlas, to operate in Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Civil Aviation Authority said on Tuesday.

The spokesman for the authority Qasim Rahimi said the Turkish company has world-level credit and that its presence in Afghanistan’s aviation market will help reduce flight costs and will create healthy competition among airline companies in the country.

According to the authority, two Turkish companies and two local airlines will have flights to Turkey. 
“The application (of the company) was assessed and finally it was approved by the High Economic Council of Afghanistan’s government.

“Atlas Global has requested four flights from the Civil Aviation Authority but according to our contract with Turkey a total of 28 flights have been considered between Afghanistan and Turkey,” Rahimi told TOLOnews.

An analyst meanwhile called on government to support national companies and save them from bankruptcy.

“The positive news is that Afghanistan has succeeded to attract an international company for investment in Afghanistan, but the bad news is that Afghanistan has not been able to support local companies which has led to their collapse,” Mohammad Ali Mashal, an analyst in economic affairs, told TOLOnews.

Established in 2001, Atlas Global, known as Atlasjet until 31 March 2015, is a Turkish airline headquartered in Istanbul, which operates scheduled domestic and international passenger services as well as charter flights, mostly out of its base at Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport.