Tajik civil aviation authorities have given consent to flights for Russia’s Yamal Airlines to Dushanbe from Zhukovsky Airport. 

An official source at the Ministry of Transport of Tajikistan says a decision on this subject was made on March 30.  The Ministry of Transport is expected to give details later. 

Recall, Tajik civil aviation authorities have proposed Russia’s Yamal Airlines to operate flights out of Zhukovsky Airport to the Tajik southern city of Kulob instead of Dushanbe but Yamal Airlines has rejected the proposal to serve Kulob.  

As it had been reported earlier, Dushanbe in December banned Yamal Airlines flights to Tajikistan out of Zhukovsky Airport and Moscow suspended flights of Tajik private air carrier, Somon Air, to the Russian regions.  The ban included flights of the airline to all Russian cities, except Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Tajik and Russian authorities reached an agreement aimed at resolving a dispute that has prevented some civilian flights between their countries at a meeting of the Tajik-Russian commission for economic cooperation that too place in Dushanbe on January 27, 2017.  Somon Air was allowed to resume its flights to four Russian cities -- Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar, Ufa, and Orenburg -- beginning on February 3.

The history of this dispute dates back to early November last year.  The two countries faced the threat of suspension of flights in early November because of a dispute between Moscow and Dushanbe over the status of Russia’s Zhukovsky International Airport, which was officially opened in May 2016.

Dushanbe called for a revision of existing bilateral agreements on mutual air flights, saying that Zhukovsky is Moscow’s fourth international airport and that it has increased the number of flights from Moscow to Tajikistan.

The Russian civil aviation authorities insisted that Zhukovsky International Airport is not under Moscow’s authority but of the town of Ramenskoye.

Tajikistan that time agreed only to flights for Ural Airlines and Tajik Air from Zhukovsky Airport.