Somon Air (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and Tajik: Сомон Эйр) is a private

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

headquartered in

Dushanbe Dushanbe is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 1,564,700, with this population being largely Tajiks, Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as St ...

and based at

Dushanbe International Airport Dushanbe International Airport is an international airport in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. It is the main hub for Somon Air and is the home base for Tajik Air, which also has its headquarters on the property. History In 1924, the f ...

History

The airline started operating on 5 February 2008 with regular flights to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. Somon Air also serves as the official carrier of President of the Republic of Tajikistan and other Tajikistan high-ranking officials. Since its formation, Somon Air has been primarily focused on passenger service and transportation to

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

and other locations. Most flights to international destinations operate from

. In early August 2009, Somon Air joined

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...

's (International Air Transport Association) IATA Billing and Settlement Plan. As of January 2013, the airline participates in 14 BSP countries. BSP is a settlement system designed to simplify the selling, reporting and remitting procedures between passenger sales agents and airlines globally. In April 2013, Somon Air jointed the IATA Multilateral Interline Traffic Agreement (MITA). The IATA Multilateral Interline Traffic Agreement (MITA) is an agreement where passengers and cargo use a standard traffic document on various transportation modes to reach the final destination on a particular routing. In June 2013, Somon Air became a member of IATA Clearing House which provides a service for settling of interline accounts, airline-associated companies and travel partners. In September 2017, Somon Air obtained

membership and is working on signing interline agreements with some of major airlines from the

Commonwealth of Independent States The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization, regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an ar ...

(CIS), Europe and Asia. In July 2019, Somon Air opened an aviation training center for aviation specialists at its headquarters in Dushanbe. On 18 December 2019, Somon Air received the award "Brand of the Year 2019" bestowed by the Republic of Tajikistan. On 30 August 2022, Somon Air received the first of two

Boeing 737-800 The Boeing 737 Next Generation, commonly abbreviated as 737NG, or 737 Next Gen, is a twinjet, twin-engine narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Launched in 1993 as the third-generation derivative of the Boeing 737, it ha ...

aircraft. On 8 September 2022, the airline received its second Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

Destinations

Somon Air flies to following destinations as of June 2022:

Codeshare and Interline agreements

Somon Air currently has a

Codeshare A codeshare agreement, also known simply as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number (the "airli ...

and Interline agreement with

Asiana Airlines Asiana Airlines Inc. ( ) is a South Korean airline headquartered in Seoul.Home
." Asiana Airlines. Retrieved 13 September 2 ...

Fleet

Current fleet

The Somon Air fleet comprises the following aircraft (as of November 2019):

Fleet development

Somon Air signed a memorandum of understanding to purchase a Boeing 787-8 at the 2018

Dubai Air Show The Dubai Airshow () is a biennial air show held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in cooperation with Dubai Civil Aviation ...

for further fleet development. This has not yet been taken up. The company still hoped to launch wide-body flights that year with a 767-300ER. The airline was considering the purchase of four Embraer 190-E2, to replace older

Boeing 737 Classic The Boeing 737 Classic is a series of narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliners produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, the second generation of the Boeing 737 series of aircraft. Development began in 1979 and the first variant, the 737-300 ...

aircraft. The airline planned to commence service of the new Embraers by the end of 2018, but by September 2019 there had been no further announcement. In November 2019 Somon Air signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the

Airbus Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate Airbus Defence and Space, defence and space and Airbus Helicopters, he ...

group of companies under which the airline intends to acquire helicopters and the latest Airbus family aircraft from direct manufacturer.

References

External links

*
Official website
{{Portal bar, Tajikistan, Companies, Aviation Airlines of Tajikistan Airlines established in 2008 2008 establishments in Asia Companies based in Dushanbe