Boeing to continue coop with Uzbekistan
By Aynur Jafarova
Boeing Corporation is ready to continue the mutually beneficial and fruitful cooperation with the Uzbek partners, President of the Boeing Commercial Airplanes Company, vice-president of the Boeing Corporation Raymond Conner said at a reception of Uzbek President Islam Karimov on August 14.
At the meeting, Karimov said that the Boeing Company is Uzbekistan's reliable and long term partner in the supply, exploitation and maintenance of modern passenger aircraft, the Uzbek national information agency (UzA) reported.
Uzbekistan Airways signed an agreement with Boeing on the purchase of four Boeing-767-300ER and two Boeing-787- 800 Dreamliner aircrafts as well as an agreement with Airbus Industrie on the purchase of ten А-320-200 aircrafts in 2007 - 2008.
The total value of the agreement amounts to $1.027 billion, including the cost of the agreement with Boeing - $577.5 million.
The first two of four Boeing 767-300ER aircrafts were received in February 2012. The third one was received in May and the fourth - in July this year.
Delivery of two Boeing 787-800 Dreamliner aircrafts with GENX-1B64 engines is scheduled for 2016.
Joint work on the preparation and qualification of flight personnel of the national carrier is underway as well.
Currently, the flying stock of the Uzbek national company includes 31 aircrafts of West production.
Uzbekistan's national airline company Uzbekistan Airways exploits 15 Boeing aircrafts, which provide more than half of all airline traffic of the company, including extra-long routes in the US and Japan.
In 2013, the airline also plans to get the last of the IL-114-100 seven aircraft manufactured by TAPOiCH. Currently, the airline operates six IL-114-100 aircraft.
Uzbekistan Airways is the monopoly air carrier in Uzbekistan, wholly owned by the state. The company implements flights to 21 cities in Europe, America, Middle East, Asia and in 22 of the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and in 11 directions on local air routes.
In 2012, the airline company increased the transportation of passengers by 13.5 percent to 2.636 million passengers compared to 2011, whereas freight volumes fell by 17 percent to 40,000 tons.