Uzbekistan has agreed to increase passenger flights with Kazakhstan and China. The agreements were reached at the third meeting of the Central Asia–China (C5+1) civil aviation cooperation working group, held in Tashkent on 3–5 November. The results were announced by Uzbekistan's Ministry of Transport. The terms are formalised in signed bilateral protocols.
With Kazakhstan, flights on the Tashkent–Almaty and Tashkent–Astana routes will rise from 42 to 60 a week. On the other routes between the two countries, they will rise from 14 to 20 flights a week. In both cases this is an increase of 43%.
With China, the authorised number of regular passenger flights between the countries has been raised from 100 to 114 a week, an increase of 14%.
Civil aviation authorities and national airlines of Uzbekistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan took part in the meeting.
For airlines, the new limits mean room to add frequencies and open new routes without further negotiations on permits. The main gain goes to the Tashkent–Almaty–Astana corridor, which was the most constrained. The increase on the China side is smaller, but it widens options for carriers already operating in that market.
Our assessment: the agreements remove a regulatory limit but do not guarantee more flights. Airlines will use the new limits as commercial demand and available aircraft allow. This is the view of flycentralasia.