Russia’s Yamal Airlines has lost permit to operate flights to Tajikistan from Zhukovsky Airport as it has failed to operate flights during the season for which the permit was issued, Russia/s RIA Novosti news agency reports.
Recall, Yamal Airlines said in July that it will start flights to Tajikistan from Zhukovsky Airport in mid-September but it failed.
Meanwhile, Anvar Nourov, the deputy head of the Tajik Transport Ministry Civil Aviation Department, told Asia-Plus on July 4 that if Yamal Airlines does not begin flights to Tajikistan in the stipulated time, they will transfer the right to conduct these flights to another air carrier.
According to the Tajik civil aviation authorities, 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.
Recall, Dushanbe in December last year 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.
