Tajik national air carrier, Tajik Air, plans to launch transit flights to Belgium and France.
Tajik Air Director-General Khairullo Rahimov says the request for launching new flights to Europe has come from partner air companies of China, India and Pakistan.
He also noted that Tajik Air had launched an air route from Dushanbe to Beijing, China this year.
“We are currently considering the issue of resuming flights to Urumqi, China”, Rahimov said.
According to him, Tajik national air carrier intends to acquire wide-body aircraft, which have not yet been used in Tajikistan.
“We have reached an agreement with the China Development Bank that it will pay for an acquisition of the airliners and we will repay the loan within ten years”, Tajik Air top manager said.
A wide-body aircraft is a jet airliner having a fuselage wide enough to accommodate two passenger aisles, also known as twin-aisle aircraft, with seven or more seats abreast.
The Tajik Air’s air fleet now has 35 aircraft, including two Boeing 757-200s, two Boeing 737-400s, one Boeing 737-300, one MA-60, two AN-28s, one AN-26 and three Mi-8 MTV helicopters. However, only six of them are operated on flights, while the remaining 29 aircraft, mainly of the USSR production, are on long-term storage.
Currently, the air company management is considering potential upgrade of its air fleet with aircraft of modern Western technology.
Tajik Air operates its regular flights to the following cities in Russia: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk; also, it flies to China (Beijing), Iran (Tehran), Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek), Kazakhstan (Almaty), Turkey (Istanbul) and India (New Delhi).
From the Khujand International Airport regular flights are operated to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Surgut.
Within the country Tajik Air flies from the capital city of Dushanbe to Khujand and Khorog. (Asia-Plus/Business World Magazine)
