Urgench International Airport opened on August 5 after a major overhaul of the runway. In the evening of that day, it received the first aircraft.
At 11:00 a.m., all restrictions on the arrival and departure of aircraft were lifted. The first flight HY57 of Uzbekistan Airways from Tashkent with 146 passengers on board landed at 21:55, the press service of Uzbekistan Airports said.
The airport management and employees, standing on the apron, greeted the first landing of the aircraft in two weeks with applause. The liner was greeted with an air arch and national music. Passengers, among whom were foreign tourists, were treated to Khorezm flatbreads.
The airport suspended operations on July 20. In two weeks, the runway surface was replaced and reinforced along the entire length of 3,000 m and a width of 45 m, and the second and third taxiways were overhauled. The reconstruction will allow the airport to receive wide-body aircraft such as Boeing 787 and Airbus A330 without restrictions, which, in turn, will increase the number of flights and passenger traffic to the Khorezm province, the report says.
The previous major reconstruction of the runway at Urgench Airport was carried out in 1997. Partially damaged sections of the runway were repaired in 2018.
The reconstruction project contractor was the State Unitary Enterprise "Urganch yo`llardan muntazam foydalanish", the general designer was the engineering company Niiat. The laboratory study of the surface was carried out by the analytical and testing department of the Institute for Retraining and Advanced Training of Personnel in the Field of Transport under the Ministry of Transport of Uzbekistan.
It should be noted that the day before, a call for bids was announced for the modernization and transfer of management on the basis of a public-private partnership of the Urgench airport. There are plans to build a new runway, a new terminal and other facilities.
