Tajikistan’s Somon Air Buys 2 Boeing 737 MAX 8s & Mulls Direct London Flights

The largest airline in Tajikistan – Somon Air – has signed an agreement to purchase two Boeing 737 MAX 8
aircraft from aircraft leasing conglomerate DAE Capital. The jets are set to join the carrier’s fleet sometime in 2026.

Finally decided

Since 2019, the Dushanbe-based carrier has been weighing the decision to buy the two MAX 8’s as a replacement to the airline’s aging fleet of 737 NG aircraft. Following the grounding of the aircraft type in 2020 and the pandemic, which caused air travel around the world to grind to a halt, Somon Air nearly bought Embraer and Airbus instead before reconsidering the MAX.

Finally, the carrier confirmed to aviation news website ch-aviation in January 2025 that the purchase would go through, with Somon Air CEO Abdulkosim Valiev saying this to ch-aviation:

“The signing of this agreement is part of our long-term strategy to modernise the [Somon Air] fleet and improve the quality of service…The new B737-8s allow us to expand our route network, increase operational efficiency and offer our passengers modern conditions for comfortable flights as well as increase the frequency of flights.”

An expansion on the horizon

During a press conference on January 29th, Habibullo Nazarzoda of Tajikistan’s Civil Aviation Agency confirmed that the agency had given permission to Somon Air to launch flights to London. When the carrier receives its two new 737 MAX 8’s sometime in 2026, the carrier will launch this service. It’s still unclear which of London’s six airports the airline will serve, as no slots have yet been allocated at any airports in the United Kingdom that would allow Somon Air to operate flights.

The MAX 8 will allow the private Tajik airline to take to the skies on other routes such as Dushanbe to Amsterdam, and South Korea (no city specified yet). In the short term, the carrier is set to launch service on flights to Saudi Arabia later in 2025, although the city that the airline is set to fly to still isn’t specified.

Somon Air is the largest and only major airline in Tajikistan. Founded as a direct competitor to now near-defunct Tajik Air, the carrier commenced flights between Dushanbe and Moscow on February 5, 2008. Since its founding, the airline has primarily focused on passenger operations with flights to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Russia.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

For almost 10 years, the airline operated without IATA membership before obtaining it in September 2017. That same year, the carrier signed interline agreements with airlines from different Commonwealth of Independent State (CIS) airline members. At the 2018 Dubai Air Show, Somon Air signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Boeing to purchase an unspecified number of Boeing 787-8
aircraft, presumably for long-haul flights. However, this offer has not since been taken up.

In 2022, the airline will receive the first of two 737-800 NG aircraft, with the other arriving at the airline a year later. Currently, the carrier operates a fleet of four Boeing 737-800
and two Boeing 737-900
aircraft, each of which is named after a Tajik “national hero” or “historic personality”.

Photo: Lars Steffens via Flickr 

The aircraft are based out of both the main airport in Tajikistan – Dushanbe International – and a smaller city in the north of the country called Khujand. It is unclear why Somon Air wants to begin flights to London in the first place. The airline isn’t a member of any alliance that makes a London route beneficial, and the potential for a hub-and-spoke model that transferring passengers can utilize is already undermined by regional competitors such as Turkish Airlines in Turkey, and the Middle Eastern carriers to south of Tajikistan such as Emirates
.