The Georgian airline Georgian Airways has initiated transit flights from Moscow to Nice via Tbilisi. According to the information available on the airline website, the flights will be performed every Wednesday and Saturday.
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For example, on July 8, Saturday, passengers departing from Moscow will have just a one-and-a-half hour layover in Tbilisi International Airport on their way to the seaside resort of France. Ticket prices start from 2206 GEL.
According to the Georgian Airways website, the airline will also conduct transit flights from Moscow to Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Thessaloniki, Milan, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and Larnaca. For example, transit flights from Moscow to Paris and Milan are scheduled every Friday and Sunday, and Moscow-Tbilisi-Berlin flights - on Wednesday-Saturday.
The president of the Georgian airline, Tamaz Gaiashvili, announced back in May that transit flights from Moscow to European capitals were planned.
Georgian Airways initiated flights on the Tbilisi-Moscow-Tbilisi route with 7 flights per week on June 20. This happened after the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, by decree of May 10, annulled the decision made almost four years ago to suspend direct flights to Georgia. The President of Georgia declared a boycott of Georgian Airways because of flights with Russia. As Salome Zourabichvili said, this is an airline company that “takes full advantage of the state to get rich“ during every government. In response, Tamaz Gaiashvili declared Zurabishvili persona non grata and said that he will not allow her on board the plane until she apologizes to the Georgian people.
On July 1, the Ukrainian authorities sanctioned Georgian Airways and Tamaz Gaiashvili. They were among an additional 190 individuals and 290 companies sanctioned over ties to Russia and the war against Ukraine.
The international partners of Georgia are concerned over the resumption of direct flights between Russia and Georgia. In an interview with Georgian News, the US ambassador to Georgia, Kelly Degnan, said that direct flights give Russian citizens backdoor access to Europe, as Europe has closed its airspace for Russian citizens.
“Direct flights open a back door to Europe for them.“ It is important that Russian citizens understand that they are being isolated because their government chose to go to war.
We have had relative peace and stability in this whole European region for 75 years until Russia again started a war. They started a war here in 2008, invaded Ukraine in 2014, and now, a devastating attempt to eliminate Ukraine as a nation, simply for the greed of wanting to restore Russia’s empire. I fear that if we don’t stand together, strong and united, Putin won’t get the message that he can’t keep doing this, this has got to stop. So by providing those direct flights to Tbilisi, which would then allow them to go to France or Germany, it makes Russian citizens think that everything is normal. It’s not normal, it’s their government that disrupted the peace and stability that we have all done so much to build over the last 75 years.
