Uzbekistan becomes top international destination for Russian airlines

According to data from the Federal Agency for Air Transport of Russia (Rosaviatsiya), Russian carriers will operate flights across 67 different routes to Uzbekistan this season, placing the country at the top of the list for international flight connectivity from Russia.

In terms of the total number of international routes, Uzbekistan is followed by China with 57 routes, Turkey with 55, Thailand with 35, and Egypt with 33. This current standing highlights a rapid ascent for Uzbekistan, which ranked ninth in passenger traffic with Russia back in 2019. At that time, Russian airlines transported 1.24 million passengers between the two nations – a figure that was 9.5 times smaller than the traffic to Turkey and 2.4 times smaller than that to China.

The Russian market remains equally vital for Uzbek carriers. Data from Lufthansa Consulting indicates that while Russia accounted for 49% of the passenger traffic for Uzbek airlines in 2019, this share grew to 52% by 2022. During the current season, the national carrier Uzbekistan Airways serves 19 Russian cities, while the country’s largest private carrier, Centrum Air, operates flights to 13 cities. Additionally, Qanot Sharq continues to link several Uzbek cities with Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the new carrier FlyOne Asia is set to launch five routes from Tashkent to Moscow and various Russian regions.

Industry experts attribute this high volume of passenger traffic to several factors, including bilateral labor migration and Uzbekistan’s growing appeal for business and tourism. Furthermore, with Western airspace closed to Russian carriers, Tashkent has evolved into a strategic transit hub for Russians traveling to the United States. Uzbekistan Airways remains the only airline in Central Asia offering direct transatlantic flights to New York.

This aviation boom follows a strategic agreement reached in July 2025, where Uzbekistan and Russia committed to tripling the number of weekly flights and expanding the geography of their air services. This agreement aims to increase the frequency from approximately 310 weekly flights to over 1,000, while also exploring the possibility of "triangular" routes connecting three distinct destinations.