A flight between Dushanbe and Tashkent scheduled for February 23 has not taken place.
Tajikistan’s privately owned airline, Somon Air, which was supposed to operate this flight, has not given any comment on this subject.
The Somon Air press center has not answered our telephone calls.
Representatives of Dushanbe International Airport also could not give explanation for the cancelation of the flight.
“The flight was on our schedule and we were making preparations for serving it. We do not know why the flight was canceled,” Ms. Jamila Huseinova, a spokeswoman for Dushanbe International Airport, told Asia-Plus Thursday afternoon.
Representatives of Somon Air were expected to fly to Tashkent today to discuss the return of regular civilian passenger flights from Dushanbe to Tashkent.
Recall, Uzbekistan canceled the first regular flight between Dushanbe and Tashkent scheduled for February 20.
Uzbekistan Airways has sent a letter to the Tajik aviation authorities laying all the blame at Somon Air.
The letter, in particular, argued that Somoni Air had filed a request to effect charter flights and not regular scheduled flights.
It also claimed it only received the official paperwork authorizing the route on February 19, one day before the flight. That gave the insufficient time to adopt a decision, as the matter had to be considered by security services and air defense officials, the letter said.
The sales manager of Somon Air company, Alisher Rustamov, and several of his subordinates have been fired over the cancelation of the regular flight between Dushanbe and Tashkent.
Somon Air said on February 21 that Alisher Rustamov and his subordinates were fired after an internal investigation revealed the company had failed to provide the Tashkent airport with the necessary documents to resume the service as of February 20.
With the exception of a test flight on February 10, there have been no direct civilian flights between the two capitals since 1992.
