Tajikistan’s Somon Air Adds Routes, Receives First Boeing 737 MAX

Somon Air, Tajikistan’s national carrier, says it will start direct flights once a week between Dushanbe and Minsk, Belarus, on August 29. “Flights will operate every Saturday,” said the airline, which received its first Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in Dushanbe on August 3 as part of a fleet expansion. The airline, which is adding international routes and working to strengthen its role in the Central Asian aviation market, committed to ordering up to four 787 Dreamliners and up to 10 737 MAX aircraft in an announcement with Boeing in late 2025. At the time of the agreement’s announcement, Somon Air was operating six Next-Generation 737 airplanes to destinations across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, according to Boeing. The expansion of Somon Air’s international flights will “contribute to the development of tourism, cultural exchange, the expansion of economic relations, and the enhancement of Tajikistan's reputation as a country leading the ‘open door´ policy,” the state Khovar news agency reported on Monday. In 2025, Tajikistan introduced an Open Skies policy that lifted many market restrictions as a way to encourage competition, with the aim of generating better prices for passengers, more efficient service, and route diversification. On August 9, Somon Air began direct flights every Sunday between Dushanbe and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In June, it also started a weekly direct route between the Tajik capital and Tbilisi, Georgia. In April, the airline introduced a new weekly route between Dushanbe and Ufa in western Russia. Operating since 2009, privately owned Somon Air says it is Tajikistan’s “national air carrier.”