Over the past year, Tajik national air carrier Tajik Air has been forced to say goodbye to nearly half of its employees
“Last year, a total number of Tajik Air’s employees was 525 people. As of January 20 this year, their number was only 279 people,” the first deputy head of Tajik-Air, Azizmamad Qurbonov, told reporters in Dushanbe on February 7.
According to him, some of them have been retired for age reason while others have been reduced.
“The company’s wage debts now amount to 1.1 million somoni,” Qurbonov noted.
Meanwhile, Ikrom Subhonzoda, Director of the Civil Aviation under the Government of Tajikistan, noted that number of flight personnel of two Tajik air companies – Tajik Air and Somon Air – has remained unchanged in recent year – 115 pilots.
“And if any of them left, they just left one company for another one,” said Subhonzoda. “Moreover, Tajik Air last year recruited eight pilots from abroad.”
Tajik national air carrier plans to increase the number and frequency of flights in the near future.
“The second plane of Tajik Air, Boeing 767-300, which is currently under repair in Tashkent, will begin operating flights soon,” Qurbonov noted.
According to him, only the one aircraft of the company, Boeing 757-200, now operates flights from Dushanbe to Moscow (Zhukovsky Airport) twice a week.
“Besides, during a government session that took place on January 20, the head of state ordered us to acquire two other planes,” said Qurbonov. “We are currently studying this issue.”
Recall, Tajik Air resumed flights after half a year idle in July last year. On July 26, Tajik Air’s Boeing 767 carried a group of Tajik Hajj pilgrims from Khujand, the capital of Sughd province, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Tajik Air suspended it operations early last year, stopping flights practically on all air routes. Some experts even noted that it could not be ruled out that the company would be declared bankrupt with further handover to private hands.
Tajik Air has been experiencing various problems for a long time but they showed up more sharply ahead of the New Year holidays, when the airlines began postponing flights for several days. On January 1, the carrier announced it was cancelling flights on its Dushanbe-Moscow route until the end of January. Since then, the scale of Tajik Air’s troubles has only deepened, and the airline was forced to make changes to its flight schedule. Tajik Air then sent its staff members on leave without pay.
The national airline has experienced great financial difficulties since the end of the zero years. Specialists of the airline say that in such conditions the carrier turned out to be due to high prices for jet fuel and the unstable economic situation.
