Turkmenistan to launch direct flight to Paris
By Aynur Jafarova
Starting December 20, Turkmen Hova Yollary will begin to operate regular passenger flights from Ashgabat to Paris and vice versa on Fridays.
Turkmenistan is improving its international air transportation infrastructure as part of its national plan for the development of civil aviation, adopted in July 2012.
Turkmen Hova Yollary (Turkmenistan Airlines) owns more than 20 comfortable Boeing airliners.
Boeing is a major U.S. manufacturer of commercial jetliners.
Now more comfortable airplanes of the new generation such as Boeing 737-700 and 737-800 will substitute Boeing 717-200, 737-300, and 757-200.
The company is going to start using these aircrafts in the first half of 2014, and their number is expected to reach 39 aircraft in the years ahead. Turkmenistan Airlines currently carries out flights to 15 cities in 11 countries.
Turkmenistan plans to increase the number of purchased planes. This will facilitate opening new aerial routes from Ashgabat to Madrid, Jakarta, Muscat, Al-Kuwait, Singapore, Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada, and Cairo.
At present, in addition to domestic flights, Turkmen Hova Yollary operates regular flights to Abu Dhabi, Amritsar, Almaty, Bangkok, Birmingham, Delhi, Dubai, Kiev, London, Moscow, Minsk, Beijing, Istanbul, Moscow, Frankfurt and other cities.
In April 1993, Turkmenistan became a full member of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized agency of the UN. Work on the accession of Turkmenistan into the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) is currently underway.