DUSHANBE, July 22, 2011, Asia-Plus — Under current conditions, Tajik national air carrier, Tajik Air, does not intend to resume flights to Khorog, the capital of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (Gorno Badakhshan or GBAO) because of their unprofitableness.
The Tajik-Air top manager Muzaffar Ishoqov remarked this at a news conference in Dushanbe on July 21.
“We will be able to operate flights to Khorog only if we are exempted from paying air navigation and airport service fees on this route,” said Ishoqov, “We must not bear this burden alone because the air company is not financed from the national budget.”
Ishoqov said that sometimes monthly losses from the Dushanbe-Khorog flight had been estimated at 100,000 U.S. dollars.
“We are ready to operate flights to all large cities of the country only if the aviation service payment issue is resolved,” Ishoqov noted, adding that another unprofitable domestic flight is the flight from Dushanbe to Khujand.
Tajik Air has its head office on the property of Dushanbe Airport in Dushanbe. The airline has its main hub at Dushanbe Airport, and it retains a secondary focus point at Khujand Airport in Sughd province. Tajik Air now serves more than 20 destinations in eight countries.
