Uzbekistan Airways has changed its flight routes to European countries since January 20 — they no longer fly over Russia, the company CEO, Shukhrat Khudaikulov told at a press conference Tuesday.
According to him, the decision was prompted by the recent report of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) on the unsafety of flights over the European territory of Russia. Now Uzbekistan Airways routes fly further south — via Azerbaijan and Turkey.
“Naturally, this extends the flight by 30-40 minutes one way and entails additional costs for the company,” he underscored. “Despite this, we have not raised the prices, because this is a force majeure situation, and the passenger should not be responsible for it.”
Shukhrat Khudaikulov said that the company's flight control center is constantly analyzing the situation in the airspace.
“Literally every second is analyzed. If the situation is considered unsafe — and we have an average of 200 passengers on our flights, and we are responsible for each of them — a decision is made to change the route, about which the dispatchers immediately instruct the pilots,” he emphasized.
He added that after the crash of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane in Kazakhstan, a commission was formed under the leadership of the Prime Minister and emergency discussions took place. The commission included officials of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Transport, Uzaviatsia, Uzbekistan Airways and other bodies that carefully analyzed the situation and made decisions regarding the safety of air routes.
