DUSHANBE, July 22, 2010, Asia-Plus — Tajik national air carrier, Tajik Air, now has to pay air navigation fees for use of Uzbekistan’s air space, Anvar Maqsoudov, the director of the state unitary enterprise, Tajiknavigatsiya (air navigation service), announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on July 22.
He noted that under an agreement signed in 1993, the national air carriers of the countries – Tajik Air and Uzbekistan Havo Uyllari – had been exempted from paying air navigation fees by mutual arrangement. “However, this agreement expired and we signed a temporary agreement on an air traffic control and collection of air navigation fees on June 26,” said Maqsoudov, “Under this agreement, air carriers of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will pay air navigation fees for use of air spaces of the countries in accordance with the endorsed price list,”
According to him, the Tajik side is not aware of the fees set by Uzbekistan. “I think they do not differ from our fees; may be plus or minus US$5.00-US10.00,” said Maqsoudov, “The fee rate is set depending on weight of aircraft. If aircraft weighs 100 tons the rate of the charge for each 100 kilometers of flight will be US$65.00.”
“For one ton of takeoff weight we collect US$7.60. Fore example, Tu-154 weighs 100 tons and we collect US$760 for its landing on the territory of Tajikistan and air navigation services,” said he, “The airport, for instance, collects for takeoff and landing at the rate of US$15.00 per each ton of the takeoff weight.”
We will recall that Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reported on June 29 that Uzbekistan has terminated a key air-traffic agreement with Tajikistan. Under the terminated 1993 agreement, Uzbek air-traffic controllers guided planes overflying Uzbek territory to land in Tajikistan”s northern Sughd province, while Tajik air-traffic controllers provided similar guidance to Uzbek planes landing in Uzbekistan”s southern Surkhndarya province.
Aziz Nabiev, head of the air-navigation service at Tajikistan”s Transport and Communications Ministry, told RFE/RL that the countries signed a temporary agreement on June 26 at Uzbekistan”s insistence. Under that agreement, each country”s air-traffic controllers will take complete responsibility for guiding its planes to land. In addition, Uzbekistan has asked that Tajik planes no longer begin their descent to land in Sughd from Uzbek airspace.
Tajik officials say they have submitted the draft of a new permanent agreement to Uzbekistan but have not received a response to that proposal.
Nabiev, for his part, explained that if Uzbekistan closes its airspace to Tajik planes they could be re-routed through the airspace of other countries. He said this would, however, be more expensive.
Uzbekistan has also annulled an analogous air-traffic agreement with Kyrgyzstan.
