I went on a part holiday, part work trip to Central Asia in August 2025. I've already been to all five Central Asian countries but this time I wanted to go to some places I hadn't been before: Dushanbe amd Khorog in Tajikistan, Astana in Kazakhstan and Khiva in Uzbekistan. The obvious choice to fly from Europe to Central Asia is Turkish Airlines. I live in Iceland but Turkish does not fly there. The cheapest business class from Europe to Dushanbe was from Budapest, so I first booked a Wizz flight from Iceland to Budapest.
Here's my full itinerary:
Keflavík to Budapest, Wizz, economy – no flight report
Budapest to Istanbul, Turkish Airlines, business
Istanbul to Dushanbe, Turkish Airlines, business
Khorog to Dushanbe, Tajik Air, economy
Dushanbe to Astana, Somon Air, economy – you’re here
Astana to Tashkent, Uzbekistan Airways, business
Tashkent to Khiva, Uzbekistan Airways, economy
Khiva to Tashkent, Uzbekistan Airways, economy
Tashkent to Istanbul, Turkish Airlines, business
Istanbul to Warsaw, Turkish Airlines, business
Warsaw to Keflavík, Wizz, economy
Somon Air is a Tajik airline offering international flights. It was founded in 2007 and became a IATA member in 2017. It has currently a small fleet of four B737-800s and two B737-900 ERs. It flies to Astana, Bishkek, Delhi, Doha, Dubai, Islamabad, Istanbul, Jeddah, Kazan, Khujand, Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, Munich, Novosibirsk, Tashkent, Tehran, Trabzon, and Urumqi.
I took taxi from the hotel to the airport. It cost 14 somoni (1.4 €) and took 10 minutes.
I went to the international terminal…
But it was completely empty inside.
I went out and went to the other building. There were a first checkpoint to enter the building, although I was not stopped, then a simple security control, then a third checkpoint where I wasn't stopped either.
Most flights are to Russia where about 1 million Tajiks work.
I had tried to manage my booking or to check in on-line on the airline's website but I couldn't retrieve my booking.
Check-in opened 1435. I was the first to check in, luckily, because there was immediately a long queue behind me. The agent had difficulties finding my reservation. I asked for an aisle seat in the exit row, so he gave me first seat 36F, then 16F, then eventually 16D. He was talking on the phone as he was checking me in, so he had difficulties paying attention.
There was a quick boarding pass control to go up to departures. Passport control took only a few minutes, and security wasn't much longer. It took me altogether 15 minutes from the opening of the check-in desk to be in the gate area, so I had about one hour before boarding.
There's one large waiting area.
The duty-free shop didn't seem to attract a big crowd.
There's a quite nice café.
This soft drink cost me 20 somoni (2€) - airport price.
Let’s have a look again at the departure board.
A Somon Air plane arrived at 15.55.
The flight was supposed to leave at 16.25, but absolutely nothing happened this time. Information is not the strength of Dushanbe Airport.
Boarding started at 16.50. All passengers attacked the boarding gate like a bus that doesn't have enough seats for everyone.
The cabin crew was not the most welcoming I've ever met.
Patience was not the best word to describe the boarding passengers fighting their way down the aisle trying to find their seat.
This plane has a single class, all economy cabin in a classic 3+3 configuration. There used to be a business class, but it was quite some years ago.
You remember I asked for an aisle seat in the exit row? The first emergency exit row has seats 15ABC and 14DEF. 16ABC and 15DEF are the seats in the second emergency exit row. Well, 16D is not in the emergency exit row but one row behind it.
The plane was a B737-800, registration number VQ-BHE built in 2015.
The cabin was in reasonably good condition.
The plane was almost completely full.
There was a welcome message in English as well. An expected flight time of two hours was announced.
There was a manual safely demonstration in Tajik and English but there was no separate safely briefing for passenger seated in the emergency exit row.
Push-back was at 17.20 for a scheduled departure time of 16.25. We took off at 17.32.
It was unusually hot in the cabin during taxi and take-off.
Service started exactly 30 minutes after take-off. A sandwich and a wet wipe was given to each passenger. It was followed a few minutes later by a drink service with a choice of water, tea or coffee.
Then everything became quiet after meal service. People were watching movies on their phone, the many children were probably sleeping as I couldn't hear them crying, I was reading a book, and the flight just became a normal, regular, almost enjoyable flight.
We landed in Astana at 19.45 and we stopped at 19.50, and all passengers started the queue up in the aisle while the seatbelt sign was still on, and the enginer for a scheduled arrival time of 18.45.
Astana, called Nur-Sultan briefly between 2019 and 2022, is the capital city of Kazakhstan. It’s a modern, wealthy city with large roads, huge residential buildings and some remarkable, although most likely unnecessarily expensive buildings and monuments.
Astana Grand Mosque is an architecturally beautiful building. The blue colour of the building goes well the blue colour of the sky. Although the mosque is huge, most Kazakhs are very moderately religious, follow a very moderate version of Islam and do not go regularly to the mosque.
A Kazakh Eli Monument on Independence Square
The Kazakh People Monument
Baiterek Tower
Atyrau Bridge
Any my favourite: the market
