DUSHANBE, December 27, 2013, Asia-Plus -- Tajik national air carrier, Tajik Air, has decided to resume flights from Dushanbe to the Vanj district in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) after 16 years of interruption.

Flights to Vanj were reportedly suspended in 1997 due to a poor state of the Vanj airport and low passenger traffic.

The Vanj airport has been rehabilitated and Tajik Air is expected to resume the flights to this district of Gorno Badakhshan next year.

The flight will be operated once a week – on Mondays, and ticket for this flight will cost 70.00 U.S. dollars.

The first flight from Dushanbe to Vanj is scheduled for January 6 and Antonov-24 will be sued to operate flights to Vanj.

Tajik Air (Tajikistan Airlines) is the national airline of Tajikistan.  The airline has its main hub at the Dushanbe airport, and it retains a secondary focus point at the Khujand airport.

The company started operations on September 3, 1924 as Tajik Aviation. Its first route was Bukhara to Dushanbe, served by Junkers F-13 aircraft.  It is the sixth oldest airline still in operation.

Tajik Air now serves the following destinations: China (Urumqi); Iran (Tehran, Mashhad); Kazakhstan (Almaty); Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek); Russia (Irkutsk, Moscow, Novosibirsk, St Petersburg, Samara, Sochi, Surgut, and Yekaterinburg); Tajikistan (Khorog and Khujand); and United Arab Emirates (Sharjah).