Tajikistan and China are set to resume direct flights between Dushanbe and Beijing. This issue was discussed yesterday during a meeting between the head of the Civil Aviation Agency of Tajikistan (CAA), Habibullo Nazarzoda, and the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of China to Tajikistan, Ji Shumin.
The Civil Aviation Agency says topics such as expanding flight routes and launching new direct flights to strengthen economic and tourism ties between the two countries were addressed at the meeting.
Mr. Ji Shumin reportedly noted that China also plans to launch direct flights to Tajikistan from other Chinese cities to promote tourism between the two nations.
The flight between Dushanbe and Beijing was first launched in 2016. All flights on this new route were scheduled to operate once a week — on Mondays, using Boeing 757 aircraft. The flight duration was 5 hours and 30 minutes.
However, due to low passenger traffic, the flights were temporarily canceled three months after their launch. They were resumed in 2017 but were canceled again after some time.
Since the beginning of 2020, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the declaration of the pandemic, direct air travel between Tajikistan and China was suspended.
It was only restored from Urumqi, but not from Beijing. However, in 2022, Ziyodullo Sharipov, head of the Civil Aviation Regulation Department of the Civil Aviation Agency under the Government of Tajikistan, reported that from June 23, 2022, Tajik and Chinese aviation authorities agreed to resume direct flights from Dushanbe to Beijing.
For a long time, flights from Tajikistan to China operated on the Dushanbe – Urumqi air route. In 2024, a flight from Khujand to Kashgar was also launched. This flight is operated by the Chinese airline Chandu Airlines.
The flight on the new route Khujand – Kashgar – Khujand operates once a week, from Khujand to the Kashi-Layning International Airport, located in the Kashgar City District of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The flight time is 1.5 hours.
