Tbilisi, Georgia, June 3
By Elena Kosolapova- Trend:
A number of new scheduled and charter flights from Georgia are open in summer of 2014, head of the Georgian National Tourism Administration, Giorgi Sigua told the Azerbaijani journalists.
"A number of new scheduled flights from Russia, European countries are being opened this year. From June 14, Ukraine International Airlines from Lvov, Kharkov, Kiev start flying to Batumi. They will have 10-11 weekly flights. Also, "Dniproavia" will fly from Dnepropetrovsk. WizzAir Airlines increases number of flights from Kutaisi to Kiev," he said.
Furthermore, it is planned a lot of scheduled flights from Moscow, Israel, the Arab states in summer, according to the administration head.
At present, negotiations are held with the Hungarian WizzAir company on making the Kutaisi airport as a base airport for this company, according to Sigua.
"This airport has all conditions in this regard. The Kutaisi Airport is a public airport, and we there offer to airlines very favorable terms and low tarrifs, charges for takeoff, landing, etc," he said.
If the negotiations will be successful, WizzAir can open a number of new flights from Kutaisi, including to Baku, the head of the National Tourism Administration said.
WizzAir today makes about 30 flights a week to Kiev, Warsaw, Katowice, Vilnius and Budapest, Sigua said. Earlier flights to Kharkiv, Donetsk and Lviv have also been implemented, however, due to the events taking place in Ukraine, they were temporarily suspended. WizzAir will open flights to Italy, Germany and other European countries in the following year.
Furthermore, he noted that , the representatives of Japan and Indonesia proposed to open direct flights from Georgia to those countries.
"Hereafter, all depends on how big the demand will be in these countries to the Georgian tourist product," Sigua said.
However, in general, Georgia does not need to open long flights, as there are near two major transportation hub - Istanbul in the west and Doha in the east. Therefore, the flights from the further direction to Tbilisi are carried out with transit through these hubs. Furthermore, 90 percent of tourists coming to Georgia are the citizens of neighbouring countries - Azerbaijan, Turkey, Armenia, Russia and Ukraine.
Today, the most distant flights from Georgia - is China and Europe - Amsterdam.