DUSHANBE, January 15, Asia-Plus -- The Tajik State Air Company TajikAir has summed the results of its work carried out last year.  

A source at TajikAir said that during a board meeting last week, January 12, it was noted that under the national program for 2006 the Tajik state air company was expected to ship 3,900 tons of cargo and carry 440,000 passengers last year. 

The first deputy TajikAir director general, Firouz Hamroyev, told the meeting that the air carrier reached 96 percent of the 2006 target on carrying passengers. 

In 2006, The TajikAir share in the republic’s overall transportation accounted for 47.5 percent, which is 15.4 percent fewer than in the previous year of 2005.  In the international transportation, the share of the national air carrier last year accounted for 37.6 percent, which is 15.8 percent fewer than in 2005.  

During the meeting it was also noted that state of the company’s planes remains one of the most acute problems.  Many planes have outlived their service and some others will outlive their usefulness within the next few years. 

As it had been reported earlier, two TU-154Bs outlived their service last year and the company retired them from the route from Khujand to Moscow.

Although over the past two years, the company has carried out an active work on modernizing its aircraft, the company does not have financial resources to modernize the existing planes or to buy the new ones on its own.  Over this period, the company has mapped out an information memorandum, which provides analysis of the existing routes and plans of the country’s national carrier on using western type airplanes.  

According to the TajikAir source, the main objective of the memorandum is in providing potential leasing-givers and other project partners with information about the company and its branches in the provinces. 

After choosing a leasing company and two planes to lease, the air carrier will choose technical provider and select air personnel for operating the leased aircraft, according to the source.