DUSHANBE, June 21, Asia-Plus -- Of 22 airports in Tajikistan, at present only 12 are operational, including three international terminals in Dushanbe, Khujand and Kulob.   

Ibrohim Jobbirov, deputy head of the civil aviation department of the Ministry of Transport, has told Asia-Plus that those operational airports include airfields in Khorog, Rushan, Vanj, Panjakent, Asht, Isfara, Farkhor, Qurghon Teppa and Gharm.  

According to him, airfields in this cities mainly receive small planes such as Yakovlen-40, AN-28 and helicopters.   

Since the prices of domestic flights are quite high (for example, the prices of tickets on the flights to Khujand, Khorog and Gharm amount to US$55.00) the country’s population cannot afford travels by planes.  “Therefore the majority of domestic flights in Tajikistan are conducted as there are enough passengers,” Mr. Jobbirov said.  

“10 airfields in Tajikistan stopped operating in the early Nineties already,” said Jobbirov, “And rehabilitation of each of them requires more than US$35,000.”  “Today there is no necessity in rehabilitation of these airfields because there is demand among the population for flights on these directions,” the Transport Ministry official said.  

In the meantime, according to information from Tajikistan’s State Air Company “Tojikiston”, an official reopening of the airport in Gharm, the administrative center of the Rasht district (eastern Tajikistan), will be held on June 27.  Restoration works there have been carried out for two months.  Over this two-month period, builders from the “Aviastroy” company, an affiliate of the Tajik national air carrier, have refurbished the main building of the airport and adjoining buildings.  For refurbishment of the Gharm airport the Tajik national air carrier has provided 110,000 Somonis (equivalent to US$34,000).