Uzbek Airline Announces Cut in Flights to Russia

Uzbek airline Qanot Sharq announced it will reduce the number of flights to Moscow and St. Petersburg from January 20 to March 6, citing the need for scheduled maintenance of its Airbus A320 fleet, The Caspian Post reports citing foreign media.

Some flights to Moscow (Domodedovo) from Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Namangan and Fergana, as well as to St. Petersburg (Pulkovo) from Samarkand and Namangan will be temporarily suspended. In addition, some flights between Tashkent and Samarkand will be canceled from January 22 to March 5.

Earlier, several foreign airlines suspended flights to Russia amid the investigation into the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) passenger plane. The crash near the Kazakh city of Aktau on December 25 killed 38 people, 29 survived.

AZAL itself suspended flights (from Baku to 10 Russian cities), and the number of flights was also reduced by Kazakhstan’s Qazaq Air, Israel’s El Al (from Tel Aviv to Moscow), the Arab Flydubai (from Dubai to Sochi and Mineralnye Vody) and Turkmenistan Airlines.