Tag Archives: aviation

Europe bans Turkmenistan Airline

FEB. 5 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Aviation Safety Agency banned Turkmenistan Airlines from flights to EU airports until it had proved that it meets international safety standards. The ban is a blow to Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov who has spent millions of dollars buying new jets for the airline. Turkmenistan Airlines flys from Birmingham and London Heathrow via Ashgabat to India. To cover the gap, it hired aircraft from a Spanish operator.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

US imposes sanctions on Yerevan travel company for working with Iran

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YEREVAN/Jan. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — The United States imposed sanctions on an Armenian company for the first time over its dealings with an Iranian airline that Washington said flies units of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards in and out of a civil war in Syria.

In a statement, the US Treasury Department said Yerevan-based Flight Travel was the third company to be sanctioned for working with Iran’s Mahan Air and that any assets linked to it or its executives in the US will be frozen. Last year it also sanctioned a company in Malaysia and another in Thailand.

“The designation of Flight Travel LLC demonstrates the US Government’s commitment to denying foreign support for Mahan Air and other designated Iranian airlines, and reinforces multiple warnings to the aviation community of the sanctions risk for individuals and entities maintaining commercial relationships with these airlines,” it said.

The US Treasury Department said Flight Travel provides ticketing, financial and administrative services to Mahan Air, which flies to Yerevan as well as to other cities in the region, Europe and China.
In Yerevan, Bella Gevorgyan, named as Flight Travel’s director, said that she was frustrated.

“I think it is not right to impose sanctions against Armenian citizens working with its neighbour country,” she told the Aysor.am news website.

For Armenia’s instinctively Western-orientated government, the US sanctions on Iran, imposed last year, are a headache. Surrounded on two sides by its arch-enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia is drawn into dealing with Iran, its far larger southern neighbour.
And over the past few years, Armenia and Iran have deepened ties. Iranians, tourists and businessmen, have also become far more conspicuous in Yerevan.

In October, when John Bolton, US President Donald Trump’s security adviser, travelled to Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi to explain the impact of sanctions, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan told him that his country would continue to deal with Iran and with Iranian companies.

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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

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JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — Qatar Airways said it had started flying cargo planes to Almaty, boosting the ambitions of Kazakhstan’s financial centre of becoming a major transit hub. Almaty will receive a Qatar cargo plane twice a week. First from Doha and then returning from Hong Kong back to Doha. Central Asian cities are looking to become trade hubs between Europe and East Asia.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Tajik Air moves to brink of bankruptcy

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DUSHANBE/JAN. 11 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik Air suspended its flights and sent staff home on unpaid leave, setting off speculation that it was about to declare bankruptcy.

Somon Air, Tajikistan’s privately-owned airline, is likely to be the main beneficiary of the bankruptcy. It has said that it will accept Tajik Air tickets for now and has already announced plans to lay on another weekly flight to Moscow from Dushanbe.

Tajik Air had operated three ageing Boeings on its international routes to Russia, Central Asian capitals and China, and Soviet-era Antonov planes on its domestic routes.

The Dushanbe-based Asia Plus news agency quoted officials at Tajik Air as saying that staff had been sent home to “optimise costs in difficult times”.

A source, though, said that bankruptcy was imminent.

“We have been systematically approaching this point in recent years,” Asia Plus quoted the unnamed source as saying. “The company has been kept on a weak oxygen feed, mastering its resources in a roundabout way in its own interests.”

He said that Tajik Air was often used to buy jet fuel from traders and then to sell it on to other aviation companies at inflated prices.

“The bulk of the profit of Tajik Air was derived through aviation kerosene” he said.
The jet fuel business is closely linked to corruption, although there have been no allegations of Tajik Air involvement in any unlawful practices.

As well as financial issues, Tajik Air has also had a patchy safety record and has regularly been ranked as one of the world’s 20 worst airlines to fly with. In 1993 a Tajik Air Yak-40 plane crashed while taking off at Khorog Airport, killing 82 people.

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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

Kazakhstan Engineering signs deal to build Russian helicopters

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JAN. 17 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned Kazakhstan Engineering signed a deal with Russian Helicopters, also state-owned, to assemble helicopters at its plant in Astana. Specifically, Kazakhstan Engineering will assemble the Mil Mi-8AMT/Mi-171 helicopter which has a number of uses from ferrying cargo, to operations with the security services.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

FlyDubai starts up flights to Tashkent

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DEC. 22 (The Conway Bulletin) — UAE’s government-owned budget airline FlyDubai will start flying to Tashkent, another sign that the Uzbek tourist industry is booming. Uzbek officials announced the deal after meeting UAE officials. FlyDubai, which targets tourists, will take over the Dubai-Tashkent route from Emirates Airline, which is more business-focused.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019

Scat Air to fly to Vilnius

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FEB. 1 (The Conway Bulletin) – Privately-owned Kazakh airline Scat Air said it will start flying directly to VilniuS. The aviation sector in Central Asia has increased in size and reach markedly over the past few years. Scat, based out of Shymkent in the south of the country, is one of the few privately-owned airlines in the region. With KLM and British Airways dropping flights to Kazakhstan, low-cost airlines out of eastern Europe, have been increasing their services in Astana and Almaty.

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>>This story was first published in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin

Iran Air to restart flight to Baku

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JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) – Highlighting both improved relations and also increased demand for trade links between Iran and Azerbaijan, Iran Air said that was going to restart a direct route to Baku after a three year gap. One of the biggest drivers of the improved relations between the two neighbours has been tourism. The number of Iranian tourists, and visitors from other Gulf states, travelling to Azerbaijan has rocketed.

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>>This story was first published in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin

Emergency landing at Tbilisi

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FEB. 4 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Ukraine International Airline passenger plane made an emergency landing at Tbilisi airport after its brake system failed. Reports said that the Kiev-Tbilisi flight made several turns to burn off fuel before making the emergency landing. Nobody was hurt during the landing.

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>>This story was first published in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin

Air Astana reports profit for 2017 and rise in passengers

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ALMATY FEB. 5 (The Conway Bulletin) — Air Astana, the Kazakh national airline that is preparing for an IPO this year, posted full-year results for 2017 that showed revenue growth of 22% and a profit of $39.1m.

The results will be a relief for Kazakh government officials after the airline, which is 51% owned by Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna and 49% by BAE Systems, posted a loss in 2016 for the first time.

In a statement, Air Astana CEO Peter Foster said that EXPO 2017, the international exposition hosted by Astana for three months from June, and a rise in the number of transit passengers using the new terminal at Nazarbayev Airport, also in Astana, had driven the growth.

“Transit business grew by 58% and is now 12% of total business. Our comparatively low unit cost has enabled us to successfully grow this business segment by being competitive in key overseas markets, such as Russia, China, India and the EU, and smaller high growth markets such as Ukraine, Georgia and Uzbekistan,” he said.

Revenue in 2017 was $754m and passenger numbers were 4.2m, up 12%.

Air Astana was incorporated in 2001, flying its first flights in 2002 and replacing the Soviet-tinged Air Kazakhstan as the national flag carrier.

Air Astana has also become vital for linking Kazakhstan with the rest of the world as a handful of major airlines, including KLM and British Airways, have dropped flying to Almaty or Astana.

Mr Foster, the Air Astana CEO, said that the company would continue to grow in 2018 but that costs were rising. “Cost control, whilst maintaining quality standards, will be the key challenge in the coming period,” he said.

Air Astana, alongside the high-profile atomic agency Kazatomprom and Kazakhtelecom, is part of a clutch of state-owned companies that Kazakhstan is selling off this year on the new Astana Stock Exchange and on an international exchange.

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>>This story was first published in issue 360 of The Conway Bulletin