Thursday, March 29, 2012 -
Private Tajik airline Somon Air said Thursday it is opening new air routes to Russia and Ukraine.
The air carrier plans to operate its maiden flight from Tajikistan’s northern city of Khujand to Sochi city on Russia's Black Sea coast on April 1.
The route will open Sundays with a one-way ticket costing around $240, Somon Air said. Sochi is hosting the Winter Olympics in 2014.
The airline will launch its first flight from the capital Dushanbe to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv three days later.
An economy class one-way ticket on this route will cost about $290 and a business class $700.
The flight will be operated once a week, on Wednesdays.
Aside from being the first private airline in Central Asia’s poorest country, Somon Air operates Central Asia’s only Next-Generation Boeing 737 passenger plane.
The long-range Boeing 737-900ER has plied air routes to the Thai capital Bangkok, and Seoul, Korea since October 2011.
Somon Air is the official carrier of Tajikistan’s authoritarian President Emomali Rahmon.