Tag Archives: aviation

Georgia plans new mega airport

TBILISI/APRIL 8 2024 (The Bulletin) — Georgia plans to build a new international airport five times the size of the current one as it bets big on a tourism bonanza.

Irakli Kobakhidze, Georgia’s PM, announced the plan to spend $1.26b building a new airport at Vazinani, 20km to the east of Tbilisi.

“The design and tender procedures will be completed next year, and in a few years, the country will have a completely new, state-of-the-art airport,” he said.

The new airport will be the largest in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region and highlights Georgia’s position as the region’s tourist hotspot. 

This year the Georgian authorities hope to attract more than 5m tourists, second only to Uzbekistan in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region which attracted more than 6m tourists last year. Uzbekistan has just built a new airport at Samarkand. 

Mr Kobakhidze said the new Tbilisi airport will handle up to 19m passengers per year, compared to roughly 4m at the current airport.

He said that the government had ruled out expanding the current airport because its capacity was limited to 15m people. “There would be no further development prospects,” he said.

Georgia has been trying to keep up with a surge in demand for tourism from Europe and the Middle East as well as demands from business to act as an Asia-EU transit hub. 

This year, new direct routes from Britain to Georgia have opened, although most of the growth has come from routes into and out of the Middle East, where Georgia is marketed as an accessible European holiday destination.

As well as Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi have international airports.

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— This story was published in issue 564 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on April 15 2024

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2024

Uzbek airports cut landing rates for foreign airlines

OCT. 21 2021 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s airports cut their landing rates for foreign airlines by around 15% and divided service options into ‘pick-and-mix’ packages (Oct. 21). Central Asia’s airports and airlines are competing for the lucrative Asia-Europe passenger and freight trade. Rano Juraeva, chairman of Uzbekistan Airports, said in a statement that the rate cut was designed to “attract foreign airlines”. As well as investing in airports and logistics hubs, governments in Central Asia have been investing in upgrades to their state-run national airlines.

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— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Erdogan opens new Nagorno-Karabakh airport

OCT. 26 2021 (The Bulletin) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Nagorno-Karabakh, the region recaptured by Azerbaijan in a war last year against Armenia, for the third time in the past 12 months to open a new airport alongside his ally, Azerbaijani Pres. Ilham Aliyev. The new airport at Fizula is being promoted as one of the highlights of Azerbaijan’s infrastructure push in Nagorno-Karabakh.

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— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Putin wants more aviation cooperation with Central Asia

JULY 20 2021 (The Bulletin) — In a clear pitch for Russia’s aviation business, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin said that he wanted to deepen Russia’s cooperation in the aviation sector with other member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Mr Putin was speaking at the opening of the MAKS 2021, air show in Zhukovsky, Russia.  The EAEU includes Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

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— This story was published in issue 493 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 22 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Air Astana returns to profit

ALMATY/JULY 15 2021 (The Bulletin) — — Air Astana, the biggest airline in the region, said that it had returned to profit in the first six months of 2021 after recording a coronavirus pandemic-linked loss in 2020.

The airline, which is 51% owned by Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund and 49% owned by Britain’s BAE Systems, now includes FlyArystan, its low-budget brand.

Commenting on the results, Air Astana CEO Peter Foster said that strong demand on domestic routes had gone some way to making up for a continued drop in international travel.

“Strong market growth and a preference for air travel over long rail journeys have transformed Kazakhstan into the world’s fastest growing domestic market, with 31% passenger growth over 2019, undoubtedly stimulated by FlyArystan’s ultra-low fares,” he said in a statement.

Like other airlines in the region, Air Astana had shifted its focus over the past few years to promoting itself as a link between Europe and Asia. The coronavirus has undermined this strategy and Air Astana said that although some tourist routes to the Maldives, the Red Sea, Montenegro, Dubai, Turkey, Georgia and Sri Lanka were popular and high yield, international capacity was still 45% below 2019 levels.

Central Asia is also facing a third wave of coronavirus infections which is forcing countries to lockdown and, possibly to close borders. This, Mr Foster said, would hurt Air Astana.

“Covid case numbers are again moving in the wrong direction in Central Asia and many of the countries to where we are flying. Whether the recovery will be sustainable will come down to a race between Covid variants and vaccine take-up,” he said.

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— This story was published in issue 493 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 22 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Russian airport operator eyes up Central Asia

JUNE 7 2021 (The Bulletin) — Russian regional airport operator Novaport is still interested in signing deals with airports in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan despite the drop in footfall caused by the pandemic, billionaire owner Roman Trotsenko told Russian media. He said that he expects auctions to run airports, including the airport at Nur Sultan, to come up in 2020. Turkey’s TAV signed a deal in May to buy Almaty airport and has also said it will invest in Uzbek airports.

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— This story was published in issue 487 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 9 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Germany’s Eurowings to start flying to Tbilisi

JUNE 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — Eurowings, the low-cost airline owned by Germany’s Lufthansa, will start weekly flights from Dusseldorf to Tbilisi from July. There has been a boom in flights to Georgia over the past few years, driven mainly by tourism, led by Hungary’s Wizz Air which set up a base in Kutaisi in 2016. Seasonal workers have also pushed up demand for flights to Europe from Georgia. This year Germany has invited thousands of Georgians to pick fruit at its farms.

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— This story was published in issue 487 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 9 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

India creates coronavirus air corridor with Uzbekistan

MARCH 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — In what some analysts have described as a case of coronavirus realpolitik, India added Uzbekistan to a so-called ‘air bubble’ that allows Indians to travel to other countries with only limited restrictions. India has now set up ‘air bubbles’ with 27 countries. It is trying to build up influence in Central Asia and sees Uzbekistan as its best route.

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— This story was published in issue 474 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 5 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

WizzAir says that it is still too early to resume post-pandemic Kutaisi operations

MARCH 4 2021 (The Bulletin) — WizzAir, the Hungarian low-cost airline, said that although the coronavirus pandemic is easing, it is still too early to say when it will resume flights from Kutaisi in Georgia. WizzAir started flying from Kutaisi in 2012 and had turned it into a major hub linking Georgia to Europe. At its peak in 2019, WizzAir had flown to 39 destinations from Kutaisi.

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— This story was published in issue 474 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 5 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Azebaijan’s Buta Airways to start flying to Tbilisi

MARCH 1 2021 (The Bulletin) — Buta Airways, the government-owned Azerbaijani low cost airline, said that it would resume its flight schedule between Baku and Tbilisi on March 19, an important step towards normalising aviation routes in the South Caucasus. AZAL, the Azerbaijani flag carrier, set up Buta Airways in Sept. 2017 to fly mainly to Turkey and Russia.

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— This story was published in issue 474 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 5 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021