History of Aviation in Tajikistan

The development of civil aviation in Tajikistan, Tajiskistan Soviet Republic, has began back in early 1924. The same year, after the “Dobrolet” congress, at which the course of the “aeration” of the Soviet countries was analyzed, flights on the U-13 aircraft on the Bukhara-Dushanbe flight route began. Soon the flights were shedlued on regular basis three times a week. In 1927, a regular service was opened on the Tashkent-Samarkand-Termez-Dushanbe destination.

An important event for gaining the autonomy for local air transport was the creation in the late 50s on the base of the Central Asian Territorial Administration of the Tajik independent air group of the Civil Air Fleet. In 1960, Il-18 first time landed at the Dushanbe airport, on which regular flights to Moscow began starting from March of the same year. In February 1966, the air group was reorganized into the Civil Aviation Administration. In the 70s, An-24, Yak-40 and Mi-8 received permanent registration in Tajikistan.

The history of the development of civil aviation in modern Tajikistan during the Soviet period shows that it was by no means a leader in the country. Nevertheless, despite the absence of a strong aircraft repair base (as in Kazakhstan), industry science (as in Ukraine or Latvia) and the most modern aircraft (as, for example, in neighboring Uzbekistan), local air transport was a "strong middle peasant" and successfully solved the tasks assigned to it for the air and cargo traffic. Its operating performance was growing at a good pace. If by the mid-60s Tajik civil aviation carried about 750 thousand passengers annually, ten years later - twice as many (1.7 million people), and in the 80s - about 2.5 million passengers.