Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
At the end of May 2014, Azerbaijani Airlines (AZAL) plans to open six new flight destinations from the Heydar Aliyev International Airport head of AZAL, Jahangir Asgarov said in an interview with "The Business Year" magazine.
It'a planned to open flights to the following cities: Nizhny Novgorod, Minsk, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Kazan, and Rostov.
"All these cities are home to a large number of ethnic Azerbaijanis," Asgarov said.
Asgarov added that regional diaspora leaders have repeatedly asked the national carrier of Azerbaijan to launch regular flights to their cities.
"In addition to flights from Baku, we will also open international destinations from Ganja to Mineralnye Vody and Antalya," Asgarov said.
"Ganja has a dynamically developing airport," he added.
Asgarov highlighted that they intend to do everything to facilitate the growth of passenger traffic from there.
"There are also plans to launch a new domestic destination: Gabala-Nakhichevan," he stressed.
"However, the most significant of the new routes will undoubtedly be the first intercontinental flight from Baku to New York," he said. "We plan to start regular flights to the US at the end of the summer season."
Asgarov stressed that they have already received a permit from the US federal Aviation Authority (FAA), the experts of which have praised the level of Azerbaijan's aviation safety compliance with international standards.
"This will be the first flight from South Caucasus region to North America," he said.
Asgarov added that it serves as further evidence of the status of A/Al as a regional leader in the field of passenger transportation.
While speaking about the new terminal of the Heydar Aliyev International Airport, Asgarov said that its capacity will be up to six million passengers per year.
The total area of the terminal is 65,000 square meters. The new airport terminal is equipped with 30 escalators and 20 passenger elevators.
Currently, flights to 33 airports of 15 countries are carried out from the Heydar Aliyev International Airport. A total of 2,857,000 passengers were transported from the Heydar Aliyev International Airport to different destinations and back in 2013.
These figures were achieved thanks to an upgrade in the country's air transport in recent years and the replenishment of the aircraft fleet with new modern airliners. The new terminal complex also has a car park for 750 cars and driveways to it.