DUSHANBE, October 22, Asia-Plus — Tajik State Air Company TajikAir intends to lease Boeing-757 before the end of this year, TajikAir director general Hokimsho Tilloyev announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on October 22.
According to him, EASTOK AVIA (FZE), which deals with providing aircraft leasing and chartering services, is currently seeking the aircraft for the Tajik national air carrier.
He noted that they have received many proposals so far, but the main problem is to train personnel to operate the Western type aircraft. “The Boeing-757 is suitable to operate flights to Moscow,” the Tajik national air carrier top manager said.
The Boeing 757 is an American short to medium range commercial passenger aircraft manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It was launched by Eastern Air Lines and British Airways to replace the Boeing 727 and entered service in 1983. Production of the 757 ended on October 28,2004 after 1,050 had been built. The final aircraft was delivered to Shanghai Airlines on November 28 2005. As of July 2007, a total of 1,019 Boeing 757 aircraft remain in airline service
The TajikAir top manager further added that two leased Boeing 737-200s are currently used to operate flights to Khujand, Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Tehran (Iran) and Sharjah (the United Arab Emirates). “Over three months of operation, 144 flights have been conducted on these aircraft to the mentioned cities,” said Tilloyev, “One of these two Boeing-737-200s was wet-leased with a 150-hour guarantee flying time.”
The TajikAir director general noted that the air carrier has not yet received accreditation on flying of TajikAir’s Boeing-737-200s to the Russian Federation. “We ought to resolve this problem as soon as possible because we operate many flights to the Russian Federation,” Said Tilloyev, “We do not have the right to operate flights on Beings to Samara, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk without accreditation.” However, the Russian side is suspending the decision on the accreditation issue for unknown reasons, according to him.
As it was reported earlier, TajikAir leased two Boeing 737-200s from EASTOK AVIA (FZE) in June 2007. An appropriate agreement between TajikAir and EASTOK AVIA (Free Zone Entity ore FZE) was concluded at end of May. Boeing 737-200 has replaced three TU-134s on air routes from Dushanbe to Khujand, Almaty, Tehran and other cities,
Free Zone Entities (FZEs) have been allowed in the United Arab Emirates since 1992. A FZE is 100 per cent foreign-owned and is similar to a limited liability company. The main difference is that a FZE can have only one shareholder, which is of interest to foreign companies wishing to have a wholly-owned subsidiary in the Free Zone, rather than simply a branch. The minimum capital requirement is $ 272,500 and liability is limited to the amount of paid up capital.
