Aeroflot Resumes Tbilisi Flights Six Years After War
Publisher | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |
Publication Date | 27 October 2014 |
Cite as | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Aeroflot Resumes Tbilisi Flights Six Years After War, 27 October 2014, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/544fb7014.html [accessed 29 May 2023] |
Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
State-controlled Russian airline Aeroflot has resumed flights between Moscow and the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, after a six-year hiatus caused by the war between the two former Soviet republics.
An Aeroflot Airbus 320 carried about 100 passengers from Moscow to Tbilisi on October 27.
It was the Russian flag-carrier's first direct flight since a five-day war in August 2008 over breakaway South Ossetia.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and another Moscow-backed separatist province, Abkhazia, as independent states after the war, and it has troops stationed in both regions.
Diplomatic ties were severed over the war.
Direct flights between Russia and Georgia -- operated by Russia's S7 and Ural Airlines as well as Georgian Airways -- have been available in charter form only since August 2010.