DUSHANBE, March 29, 2010, Asia-Plus — Passengers flying from Moscow to Dushanbe, Khujand and Kulob by planes of Tajik airlines Tajik Air and Somon Air have stuck at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport for already four days.
One of passengers on the flight # 632, Moscow-Dushanbe, told Asia-Plus by phone from the Domodedovo airport that several hundreds of passengers have been stranded there since March 26.
“Representatives of Tajik air carrier are not available; the mother-and-child room is overcrowded, the exhausted passengers are outraged and the airport administration threatens to call police to calm down the outraged passengers,” the source said.
In the meantime, Deputy Tajik Minister of Transport and Communications in charge of the civil aviation, Farrukh Hamroyev, told Asia-Plus today that the flight delays have been caused by Russia’s shift to the summer time and lack of a new agreement between the two countries on the flight schedule.
“The last document on this subject will be signed today and the air communication will resume,” said Hamroyev, “In order to protect interests of Tajik air carriers we have prohibited planes of Russian companies to operate flights to Tajikistan until the new flight schedule document is signed.”
In the meantime, Somon Air says that it was the Russian side (Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsia) that has suspended flights of both Tajik and Russian air companies to Tajikistan.
