Russia’s Yamal Airlines is not in hurry to operate flights to Tajikistan from Zhukovsky Airport and it may lose its chance, according to the Ministry of Transport (MoT) of Tajikistan.
Yamal Airlines has received permission to operate flights to Tajikistan from Zhukovsky airport after lengthy talks, but it is not in hurry to start the flights.
Yamal Airlines sales manager, Andrey Dubrov, told TASS news agency in May that they plan to launch flights to Tajikistan in late May or early June.
The Tajik civil aviation authorities say Yamal Airlines has got permission to conduct three weekly flights to Dushanbe and three weekly flights to the Tajik northern city of Khujand beginning on July 1.
However, the company has not yet begun flights to Tajikistan. Yamal Airlines reportedly does not dare to begin flights from Zhukovsky Airport to Tajikistan because of insufficient flight load.
Representatives of Yamal Airlines have assured Tajikistan’s MoT that the company will launch flights to Tajikistan starting from August 1.
“If Yamal Airlines does not begin flights to Tajikistan starting from early August, we will be forced to transfer the right to conduct these flights to another air carrier,” Anvar Nourov, the deputy head of the Transport Ministry Civil Aviation Department, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
Recall, Dushanbe in December banned Yamal Airlines flights to Tajikistan out of Zhukovsky Airport and Moscow suspended flights of Tajik private air carrier, Somon Air, to the Russian regions.
The Tajik-Russian commission for economic cooperation reportedly agreed in Dushanbe on January 27 that Tajikistan's privately owned air carrier Somon Air will be allowed to resume its flights to four Russian cities — Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar, Ufa, and Orenburg — beginning on February 3.
However, Somon Air was barred from conducting its four weekly flights from Dushanbe to Moscow and three weekly flights from the northern city of Khujand to Moscow in early April again.
The Russian transport ministry said the ban was response to Tajikistan's refusal to allow Russian airline Yamal to fly to Dushanbe from the Zhukovsky airport outside Moscow.
Tajikistan has warned Russia that flights by two Russian airlines to Tajikistan will be barred as of April 6 unless Russia reverses a decision to bar flights to Moscow by Tajikistan's Somon Air.
The Tajik transport ministry sent a note to the Russian Transport Ministry on April 4, saying that it would bar flights by Russia's Ural Airlines and UTair to Dushanbe and the city of Khujand if Russia's March 31 decision on Somon Air was not revoked.
Tajikistan, however, postponed the suspension of flights by Ural Airlines and UTair to Tajikistan after Russia's Transport Ministry invited Tajik aviation authorities to Moscow for negotiations.
The negotiations between Dushanbe and Moscow over aviation disputes concluded in Moscow on April 28 and the sides reportedly agreed to lift restrictions on Somon Air’s flights to Moscow.
The history of this dispute dates back to early November. The two countries faced the threat of suspension of flights in early November because of a dispute between Moscow and Dushanbe over the status of Russia’s Zhukovsky International Airport, which was officially opened in May 2016.
Dushanbe called for a revision of existing bilateral agreements on mutual air flights, saying that Zhukovsky is Moscow’s fourth international airport and that it has increased the number of flights from Moscow to Tajikistan.
The Russian civil aviation authorities insisted that Zhukovsky International Airport is not under Moscow’s authority but of the town of Ramenskoye.
Tajikistan that time agreed only to flights for Ural Airlines and Tajik Air from Zhukovsky Airport.
