The airline was set up on 27 January 1955. It was established as "Aryana Airlines" with the assistance of "Indamer Co. Ltd.", which initially held a 49% interest, and the government of Afghanistan owned the balance. At the beginning, services were operated to Bahrain, India, Iran, and Lebanon, with a fleet of three Douglas DC-3s. In 1957, Pan American World Airways became the minor shareholder of the airline when it took over the 49% interest from Indamer. Domestic scheduled services started the same year. By , a fleet of three DC-3s was being used for linking Kabul with Amritsar, Delhi, Jeddah, and Karachi, as well as with some points within Afghanistan, while a single DC-4 operated the Kabul–Kandahar–Tehran–Damascus–Beirut–Ankara–Prague–Frankfurt service, so-called "Marco Polo" route. In the early 1960s, from US aid to Afghanistan was used to capitalise the company.