Tajikistan

Tajiki carrier restores service from Dushanbe.

With the added range of the Boeing 737 MAX-8, nonstop routes to Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai are high on the Tajikistani carrier’s agenda.

The airline has restarted talks with Boeing about adding the MAX jet to its fleet to enable further network expansion.

Somon Air CEO Thomas Hallam wants to expand the Tajikistan airline’s network through codeshares and believes the Central Asia-India market is ripe for growth.

Service reductions by state-owned national carrier Tajik Air have opened the door for other airlines to take market share in the Central Asian country.

In the first part of a new series focusing on the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia, often referred to as ‘the Stans’, Routesonline takes a closer look at the aviation market in Tajikistan.