DUSHANBE, November 22, 2011, Asia-Plus — Tajik national air carrier, Tajik Air, did not operate the flight from Dushanbe to Mashhad scheduled for November 13 due to lack of passengers.
Ms. Lola Kenjayeva, a spokeswoman for Tajik Air, says the next flight on this routs is scheduled for November 27. “However, there are very few persons wishing to fly to Mashhad,” she noted.
Experts note that passenger traffic usually decreases during autumn-winter period and many air companies reduce the number of flights during the winter season. According to them, it was a mistake of the company management to launch the air route from Dushanbe to Mashhad during the “passive” season.
We will recall that the national airline launched the once-weekly service from Dushanbe to Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city after Tehran, on November 13.
Tajik Air (Tajikistan Airlines) is the national airline of Tajikistan. The airline has its main hub at the Dushanbe airport, and it retains a secondary focus point at the Khujand airport.
The company started operations on September 3, 1924 as Tajik Aviation. Its first route was Bukhara to Dushanbe, served by Junkers F.13 aircraft. It is the sixth oldest airline still in operation.
Tajik Air now serves the following destinations: China (Urumqi); Iran (Tehran); Kazakhstan (Almaty); Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek); Russia (Irkutsk, Moscow, Novosibirsk, St Petersburg, Samara, Sochi, Surgut, and Yekaterinburg); Tajikistan (Khorog and Khujand); and United Arab Emirates (Sharjah).
The Tajik Air fleet includes 34 aircraft; of them, eleven are in service: one Boeing 757-200; two Boeing 737-500s; two TU-154Ms; two AN-28s; one AN-24; one Yak-40; and two helicopters Mi-8MTV.
