Summary
- Helping with the country’s tourism drive, Uzbekistan Airways may have five weekly Tashkent-Recent York JFK flights this summer.
- Its prior record was 4 weekly; not an enormous jump, but significant for this ‘different’ route.
- The airline carried about 70,000 roundtrip JFK passengers previously 12 months to September 2023, with a median seat load factor of 77%.
Uzbekistan Airways is maybe essentially the most ‘unusual’ scheduled passenger airline serving North America. It has done so for nearly 30 a long time, obviously partly for political reasons. For years, flights stopped en route in Europe, mainly at Belgrade or Riga, using the A310-300 and later the 767-300ER. Nevertheless, the primary non-stop was in 2017 using the Boeing 787-8, with service entirely non-stop the next yr.
Tashkent to Recent York JFK
The Central Asian airline, which gets so little attention aviation-wise, plans five weekly Tashkent to JFK flights from July. While this won’t seem to be a ‘wow’ moment, it is important for the route.
Now scheduled and bookable, evaluation of OAG data shows that flights have risen from three weekly in the height of summer 2019 and from the previous record of 4 weekly last summer. The Silk Road nation of Uzbekistan is on an enormous tourism push, and this development appears to be a part of it.
Photo: EQRoy I Shutterstock
Covering 6,338 miles (10,201 km), Flightradar24 shows that the long route often takes 12 to 13 hours to JFK (flying into the wind) and as much as two hours less on the best way back. From July onwards, the five-weekly service is scheduled as follows, with all times local:
- Tashkent to JFK: HY101, 06:45-10:55 (13h 10m block)
- JFK to Tashkent: HY102, 12:55-09:55+1 (12h)
Thank goodness for small mercies: HY103/HY104 won’t operate this summer. The return leg (HY104) left JFK on the joyful time of 03:10 on Saturdays. Adding to the fun, it arrived in Tashkent at 00:10+1.
Uzbekistan Airways to JFK
Evaluation of US Department of Transportation’s T-100 data for the 12 months to September 2023 shows that Uzbekistan Airways carried 69,919 roundtrip JFK passengers. Because of higher frequencies, traffic increased by 1 / 4 in comparison with the 2019 calendar yr.
Photo: Bui Le Manh Hung I Shutterstock
While T-100 information shows it had a 79% seat load factor (SLF) in 2019, it fell to 77% within the yr to September. The extra traffic didn’t keep pace with the upper capability. SLF is only one a part of the performance puzzle and mustn’t be considered in isolation. Still, 77% was lower than the common of all international routes from JFK (83%).
Uzbekistan Airways is a point-to-point (P2P) airline poorly arrange for connections. Given this, it’s unsurprising that almost all passengers – about 60,000 of the 70,000, so 86% – were P2P. They only flew between Recent York and Tashkent. Only a small number of individuals transferred to a different Uzbekistan Airways flight in Tashkent or to a different airline in JFK.
Where transfer passengers went
Within the 12 months to September, nearly all connecting passengers over Tashkent flew JFK-Samarkand and JFK-Moscow. This latter is because of Russian sanctions, which ended US-Russia non-stops and most options via Europe.
Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Easy Flying
Flying via Tashkent to succeed in Moscow is especially notable because it covers 72% more distance than a non-stop service. It adds 3,359 miles (5,406 km) each way, comparable to flying one-way between London Heathrow and JFK.
What other carriers at JFK would you prefer to see service grow? Tell us within the comments section.