The Classic British Isles Buses Website

Transport in Uzbekistan - 1. Aircraft (by Dick Gilbert)

Last updated 29 August 2024

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This addition to the Classic British Isles Buses Website International Section is the result of a visit to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan in November 2015, and on this page we look at some of the aircraft I saw there, because I quite like aircraft!

The visit to Uzbekistan included many of the historic cities along the ancient Silk Road that used to see camel caravans transporting exotic spices and textiles from China to Europe hundreds of years ago. Much of it survives to this day, but we travelled not by camel, but by Chinese-built tour coach, Spanish-built express train and European Airbus airliner. Here are some of the aircraft we saw.

Parked on the ramp in front of the international terminal this is Bermudan-registered Uzbekistan Airways Boeing 757-251 VP-BUJ leased from Pegasus Aviation and originally delivered to TWA in 1999. Behind it is a Boeing 767.

Uzbekistan Airways Boeing 757 UK-75701 "Urgench" has been with the airline since it was built in 1999. This was our steed for the flight out to Tashkent from Heathrow, and also the flight back 10 days later.

Uzbekistan Airways Boeing 767 VP-BUF, built in 2004 and operated by the airline since new. They got Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2016, and are very proud about it!

Uzbekistan Airways Boeing 767 UK-67005 is much newer than VP-BUF shown above, being delivered new to the airline in 2013.

An Uzbekistan Airways Airbus A320 usually used for internal flights. There are ten in the fleet, all acquired in 2010/2011.

Now here's something very different - these are Uzbekistan Airways Ilyushin IL-114 regional turboprops at the Tashkent domestic terminal, and you REALLY don't see many of these, although the grand total of around 20 were all built in Tashkent so we were in the right place. I'd only ever seen one before, and that was a prototype at the 1994 Farnborough Air Show. The last one to be built was delivered to Uzbekistan Airways in 2013.

Uzbekistan Airways has six (or maybe seven) Ilyushin IL-114 regional airliners, of which probably only three (or maybe four) are operational, and the airline is currently the only user of the type anywhere. I think this is UK-91106, setting off on an internal flight.

Outside the Uzbekistan Airways Technics hangar on the north side of Tashkent airport is a row of Boeings and A320s plus one solitary Tupolev Tu-154M on the left. One or two of these were clearly still in use, perhaps for the occasional charter.

Uzbekistan Airways acquired three British Aerospace Avro RJ85 regional jets in 1997, but they are all now taken out of service. Here we see all three (UK-80001, '002 and '003) parked in open store adjacent to the international terminal and control tower at Tashkent, perhaps in the hope of a sale one day.

I believe that this view shows the following, from left to right: An Uzbek state / military Ilyushin IL-76TD (which looks though it's having its paint stripped off), five assorted Uzbekistan Airways Boeings, two Uzbekistan Airways IL-76s (with two IL-114s just visible between them), and the sole Silk Road Cargo Business Airbus A300B4 VQ-BNW.

Here's a closer look at the two aircraft on the right of the previous picture, revealing perhaps another three IL-76s behind the Uzbekistan Airways example in the foreground. The Silk Road Airbus A300 is the only aircraft in the fleet.

The same two aircraft from a different angle. The Airbus A300B4 was new to China Northern in 1994 as B-2315, and was converted to a freighter by them in 2004. It became VQ-BNW with Silk Road at the end of 2011. It apparently flies about two or three times a week, usually to Istanbul or Dubai. Just behind the IL-76 is what appears to be the tail of a Tupolev Tu-154 being broken up.

This 2008 Airbus A340-300 in Tashkent is a luxury VIP aircraft. Registered in the Isle of Man as M-IABU, it is operated by Klaret Aviation, a company based in the Isle of Man which controls just this one aircraft operated on behalf of Uzbek-born billionaire Alisher Bourkhanovich Usmanov (note the personalised registration), Russia's richest man. It flew off to Moscow a couple of days later. The nose bears the title BOURKHAN, for the oligarch's Bourkhan Group, presumably named after his father Bourkhan Usmanov, or maybe just his own middle name.

Lined up for take off at Tashkent is Ural Airlines Airbus A319 VQ-BTZ, new in 2008 and leased by the airline in 2014. Based in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Ural Airlines operates to Tashkent and Samarkand, among many other destinations.

This is the airside view of the Tashkent international terminal. Unfortunately the most interesting aircraft we saw were too far away to photograph - an Antonov An-2 and a Mil Mi-2 Hoplite (both presumably agricultural) on the ramp at Urgench.

An aerial view of the domestic terminal at Tashkent, seen from our Airbus A320 as we took off to Urgench. An IL-114 is in the centre.

Finally an aerial view of Tashkent airport, looking roughly north. The domestic terminal is at the lower centre, the international terminal is just left of centre, and the Uzbekistan Airways hangars are at top centre.

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