By the end of 2018, Somon Air will have received a new generation of aircraft from Embraer. It has been known since February that the Tajikistan airline is interested in the Brazilian aircraft. Bahodur Rakhimov, technical director of Somon Air, said the airline wants to purchase four E190-E2 aircraft "given the MRO constraints of aircraft in Russia and the CIS". At the same time, he noted that there are no solid agreements with the manufacturer from Somon Air yet.
Somon Air will use the E190-E2 aircraft primarily for flights within Tajikistan and to neighbouring Uzbekistan. In 2017, air travel resumed between these two states, which for political reasons had been absent for a quarter of a century.
The E190-E2 will replace two old Boeing 737-300, one from 1989 (designation EY-545) and the other from 1993 (designation EY-555). These aircraft are obsolete and we will cease using them this year, commented Rakhimov.
Flagship of civil aviation in Tajikistan, the private airline Somon Air carried 507,600 passengers in 2017.