Winter aviation season: Georgia welcomes 239 flights

The winter aviation season has begun, and with this, more flights will come into and out of Georgia’s three international airports.

From November 2016 to March 2017 Georgian airports are scheduled to carry out 239 flights - 15 percent more compared to the same period of last year.

The Georgian Civil Aviation Agency (GCAA) announced the majority of flights (82 percent) will be carried out at Tbilisi Shota Rustaveli International Airport, while Kutaisi International Airport will receive 12 percent of flights and Batumi International Airport will serve six percent of flights.

During the winter aviation season the following airline companies will operate flights at Georgia's three international airports: Georgian Airways, Aegean Airlines, Air Astana, Scat, Azerbaijan Airlines, Qatar Airways, Flydubai, Ural Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, ATA Airlines, Zagros Airlines, Qeshm Airlines, Taban Airlines, ISRAIR, EL AL Israel Airlines, Ukraine International Airlines, YANAIR, Belavia, Lufthansa, Aeroflot, S7 Airlines, Air Baltic, Pobeda Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Pegasus, Atlasglobal, Air Cairo, China Southern Airlines, Air Arabia, Wizz Air and Arkia.

The GCAA announced some of the approved flights had been already cancelled.

Last week Turkmenistan Airlines postponed regular flights on the Ashgabat-Tbilisi-Ashgabat route due to "commercial reasons”.

There was doubt surrounding demand of the Ashgabat-Tbilisi-Ashgabat route; the airline believed this was low during the winter period and it would not be able to sell enough tickets to be commercially viable therefore postponed its regular flight service.

The GCAA was not aware when Turkmenistan Airlines planned to launch direct flights to Georgia however the agency was optimistic about future cooperation.