Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

AZAL Airlines, the national flag career is planning to make changes to its services, which are bound to please the company’s customers, according to a statement by company Vice President Arif Mammadov on October 23.

The good news is that AZAL will increase the number of seats on its low- cost flights, closer to the beginning of the summer season.

“We will re-equip our airplanes to make them more spacious, thus increasing the number of seats from 160 to 170. This will be done by the summer season, when passenger traffic will be increased on our low-cost directions, especially to Antalya," Mammadov explained.

Earlier in July, AZAL adopted a decision to reduce prices for economy class seats by 20-30 percent on all international flights.

These cost-reduction measures have been taken in accordance with the instructions given by President Ilham Aliyev to decrease the costs of airline tickets during a Cabinet meeting on the results of the country’s socio-economic development in the first half of 2015 and the objectives for the future.

AZAL set up its own low-budget line traffic on the routes: Baku-Antalya-Baku, which goes times in week; Baku-Istanbul-Baku, once daily; Baku-Moscow-Baku, twice daily; and Baku-Dubai-Baku, once daily. The flights are carried out on Embraer aircrafts.

The tickets (including all dues) for these flights cost 99 euros one way if purchased through the AZAL website and the airline ticket offices.

On this route, one should pay for each piece of luggage no more than 23 kg, while hand luggage no more than 8 kg in the size of 55x35x20 cm is free.

And there’s more good news from AZAL, as the company is also interested in increasing the number of foreign airlines, flying to the Azerbaijani regions.

Mammadov stressed that this issue is currently on the agenda of AZAL.

“Over the past two years, the frequency of flights to the Azerbaijani regions from foreign countries has increased significantly. We informed foreign airlines that we are willing to provide discounts for flights to the country’s Gabala, Lankaran, and Ganja regions. We even presented them favorable conditions for the preservation of these flights in winter season,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russian airlines are also interested in carrying out flight to the Land of Fire.

Earlier on October 21, Russian Federal Air Transport Agency allowed four Russian airlines to operate flights to Azerbaijan on 14 different routes.

The vice president noted that the company is waiting for an appeal from Russian airlines on operating new flights to Azerbaijan starting from winter season.

“Now, we are waiting for appeals from these companies. When they will come to us, we will issue a permission for them to fly to Azerbaijan,” Mammadov said.

Russia’s Yamal Airlines got a permit to operate regular passenger flights on 10 routes including Kazan-Baku, Moscow-Lankaran, St. Petersburg-Lankaran, Ufa-Baku, Chelyabinsk-Baku, Perm-Baku, Sochi-Baku, Samara-Baku, Krasnoyarsk-Ganja, and Nizhniy Novgorod-Baku twice a week.

Taimyr Air Company received a permit to perform flights on the Moscow-Zagatala, Moscow- Gabala and Moscow-Lankaran routes three times a week.

Komiaviatrans received a permit to operate flights on the Kaluga-Baku, Samara-Baku and Nizhniy Novgorod-Baku routes once a week, while Ural Airlines were permitted to operate flights on the Kazan-Baku route five times a week.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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