Somon Air (SZ, Dushanbe) has boosted its fleet renewal plans and intends to add two, rather than one, B737-8s, Chief Executive Thomas Hallam said during an interview at the virtual Routes Reconnected conference.
"We had discussions with Boeing for the last three-four months. We are getting to the final paperwork. I hope we will be signing the order for two B737 MAX 8s before New Year," Hallam said.
He added that the carrier planned deliveries in early summer 2021.
The order would also include options for two B737-10s, Hallam added. The airline has yet to secure financing for the aircraft. Hallam said that while the topic was difficult, he was "pretty confident" Somon Air would be able to "get it done".
The Tajik privately-owned carrier hopes to expand its network to destinations currently beyond its range thanks to the B737 MAX.
"We had long talks with the South Korean and the Chinese authorities about flights to Beijing, Shanghai Pudong, as well as Seoul Incheon. It would be hard for us to operate to these destinations with a stop; we would need fifth-freedom traffic rights and also it would be difficult commercially. But we couldn't do it any other way because we didn't have the range to fly non-stop. That has forced our hand to look at the B737 MAX aircraft," Hallam said.
He added that the carrier would also deploy the B737 MAX to Europe. Somon Air has operated non-stop to Frankfurt International since 2012 but thus far was unable to operate with full payload due to range restrictions. Besides increasing capacity to the German gateway, the Tajik airline will also evaluate other destinations in Europe, such as Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris CDG, or London.
Hallam said that the airline is currently operating four of its six B737 aircraft - two B737-800s and two B737-900ERs - and has parked the two B737-300s for "an unspecified period of time". The -300s will be retired once the B737 MAX 8s are delivered.
The airline planned to take a single B737 MAX 8s on dry-lease from Air Lease Corporation before the type's grounding in March 2019 but suspended it afterwards, citing a lack of public confidence in the type. The airline then suggested converting the commitment to a B737-800 before dropping it altogether last year. However, Hallam said in October that the rigorous recertification process restored Somon Air's confidence in the B737 MAX.
Besides new opportunities provided by the B737 MAX 8s, Somon Air hopes to restart its pre-COVID network as soon as travel restrictions are lifted. Hallam underlined that the demand for outbound travel from Tajikistan remained high and there was a lot of pent-up demand for leisure, visiting friends and relatives, and business travel. The carrier's routes to Istanbul Airport and Dubai International, both operated commercially, are profitable thanks to this demand.
Hallam said that the airline would like to add more frequencies to the leading Turkish airport in the future and hoped to conclude partnership talks with Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Airport), commenced before the pandemic, to put a codeshare agreement in place by summer 2021. The airline is also in codeshare talks with Air Astana (KC, Astana Nursultan Nazarbayev).
Somon Air also has plans to boost its regional network in cooperation with airlines from other countries in the region, chiefly Air Astana. Hallam underlined that currently, the network was too sparse for the needs of business travellers.
To improve the regional connectivity, Somon Air continues to evaluate adding regional jets. In the past, it signed a tentative commitment for two E190-E2s on dry-lease from VEB-Leasing, although the pandemic jeopardised its finalisation.
"The B737 MAX were our original goal. The grounding of the type switched our focus to regional jets, which, in turn, were stopped because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, hopefully, we can go back to our original plan of bringing in two to four B737 MAX and two to four regional jets over the next 5-6 years," Hallam said.
