DUSHANBE, April 23, 2009, Asia-Plus — Tajik state air company, Tajik Air, intends to launch new air routes to the Russian Federation in the near future, the Tajik Air director general Alimurod Mahmadaliyev announced at a news conference in Dushanbe yesterday.
According to him, they have already reached an agreement on this subject with Russia’s federal civilian aviation authorities and after making appropriate additions to the government-to-government agreement between Tajikistan and Russia on aerial communication, Tajik national air carrier plans to operate flights to Sochi, Nizhnevartovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Orienburg, Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk and Tumen.
At present Tajik Air offers flights to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Samara, the Tajik Air top manager said.
Besides, following government-to-government agreements Tajik national air carrier is currently working on launching regular air routes to India, Pakistan, Belarus and Ukraine.
“In all, 262,000 people have used air carriage services in Tajikistan over the first three months of this year; of them, 131,000 people have been carried by Tajik Air,” Mahmadaliyev said. According to him, international operations have accounted for 61.7 percent and domestic services have accounted for 32.9 percent of the overall volume of air carriages conducted by Tajik national carrier over the report period.
“It is to be noted that flights operated to Khujand and Khorog by using Yakovelv-40s remain unprofitable, and therefore, it has been decided to use Boeing and An-24s to operate flights to Khujand and An-28s to operate flights to Khorog,” the director general said.
