With the New Year holidays approaching, Russia and Tajikistan have decided to engage in a fresh round of battle of flight bans.
The dispute is sowing deep uncertainty among passengers and affecting those most vulnerable, the Tajik migrant laborers upon whom Tajikistan’s economy strongly depends.
The first to be hit by the new bans were the passengers expecting to fly on December 23 on Somon Air from the Russian city of Orenburg after aviation authorities in Russia stopped the company from operating in its skies. Somon Air is now barred from flying at another four Russian cities.
The history of the dispute dates back to early November. Dushanbe fired the first salvo by refusing to give clearance to flights arriving from the Moscow region airport of Zhukovsky, to which Russia reacted by threatening a complete halt to all flights to Tajikistan.
A Tajik delegation travel to Moscow on November 7 and managed after some panicked negotiations to reach a workable compromise and avert the embargo.
Trouble resumed on December 21, when Russia again threatened to close its airspace to Tajik airlines if Dushanbe would not agree to admit flights from Yamal Airlines, a company based in the northern Siberian town of Salekhard. More than 100 tickets had been sold for this route.
But Tajikistan’s Transportation Ministry said that during the November negotiations, Tajikistan agreed only to flights for Ural Airlines and Tajik Air, and that there was no mention of Yamal Airlines.
The Transportation Ministry noted that Yamal had no right to sell tickets without receiving a permit from the the government.
Suddenly, just before midnight on December 22, however, as Russia was planning to implement its total flight ban, Tajikistan suddenly caved in and gave Yamal Airlines permission to perform just one chartered flight to Dushanbe on December 22. The decision was taken, as authorities explained, to allow Tajik passengers stuck in Moscow with Yamal Airlines tickets the chance to return home.
With the Yamal Airlines situation still unresolved, however, Russia has decided to punish Tajikistan by banning flights of Tajik carrier Somon Airlines to all Russian cities with the exception of St. Petersburg and Moscow. In response, Tajik authorities are threatening to revoke authorization for four routes operated by Ural Airlines. Flights to Moscow and St. Petersburg would not be touched.
Tajik authorities take the position that the market distribution between the two countries’ air carriers should be equal and that Yamal Airlines is, therefore, excess to earlier agreements.
This position is, however, harmful to the Tajik fliers as Yamal Airlines is selling fares at anything between $80 and $100 cheaper than their Tajik peers.
The impact of such aviation disputes goes far beyond the interests of just the airlines concerned. Around nine-tenths Tajikistan’s aviation market is accounted for by migrant laborers traveling to Russia. Remittances from those workers are about the only thing keeping Tajikistan’s economy afloat.
Although the spending power of Tajiks is weak, airfares are not competitive. Flights from the capital of Kyrgyzstan to Moscow, for example, typically cost around $75 one way, while the same from Dushanbe is almost double, at around $150.
As is customary for Tajikistan, the story also involves an element of court intrigue. Somon Air is believed to be controlled by Hasan Asadullozoda (AKA Sadulloev or multiple other possible spellings), the wealthy brother-in-law of President Emomali Rahmon.
Asadullozoda’s relations with the rest of the family currently appear to be going through some tribulations, so the government may not lose too much sleep in seeing him sweat a little. Incidentally, as well as Somon Air, Asadullozoda is also understood to control a monopolist refueling company that sells its fuel to airlines at $1,600 per ton, twice the amount charged in Kyrgyzstan.
The dispute between Asadullozoda, who is also a beneficiary of a bank and the aluminum TALCO company, the ruling family has been well documented by John Heathershaw at the Exeter Central Asian Studies Network.
If the Tajik people have to suffer a little, while Rahmon’s government — for whatever reason — feels the need to allow an outside party to apply some more heat to Asadullozoda, then so be it.
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