Georgian Airways, the privately owned flag carrier of Georgia, will serve only four destinations in November this year. This represents a considerable reduction in scheduled capacity across the Georgian’s network. The airline is scaling back its operations out of its base in Tbilisi International Airport to mitigate the adverse impact that travel restrictions have had on the demand for its flights. Let’s take a look at its network for the current month.
Georgian Airways will serve more destinations than all the other airlines in Georgia put together. Photo: Anna Zvereva via Wikimedia
Georgian Airways to serve four destinations
Across November this year, Georgian Airways will only be serving four destinations out of its base in the capital of Georgia, Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport (TBS). They are:
Ordinarily, Georgian Airways also serves London Gatwick, Kyiv–Boryspil, Tel Aviv, and Yerevan during the winter months. None of these destinations are featured in the airline’s planned schedule for November.
Georgian will not fly to Batumi (BUS), the coastal airport in Georgia that it ordinarily serves on a seasonal basis from Tbilisi, at all.
Several other airlines serve Georgia
Other international airlines have also scaled back their schedules to the capital, Tbilisi. The other airports in Georgia have no scheduled passenger traffic at all.
Air France will fly to Paris Charles de Gaulle twice a week, competing directly against Georgian Airways on the route. Lufthansa will fly to Munich three times a week. Qatar Airways will connect Georgia to far-away corners of the world once weekly, and Aegean Airlines will operate a single return flight to Tbilisi on Monday 23rd November.
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Simple Flying previously reviewed a Georgian Airways service here. Photo: Simple Flying
Charters dominate
Interestingly, there will be more capacity to Georgia on charter services than on all the scheduled passenger services put together. Charter services in Georgia serve only those passengers that are departing the country. Thus, while passengers will be departing from Shota Rustaveli Tbilisi International Airport (TBS) on these flights, they will not be arriving on them.
The charters list, according to a post by airport operator TAV Georgia, is as follows:
Aktau International Airport (SCO): once weekly by Scat Airlines
Minsk National Airport (MSQ): once weekly by Belavia
Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport (KBP): once weekly by SkyUp Airlines
Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport (TLV): a single service on 17th November by Israir
Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW): five services on the 3rd, 7th, 14th, and 21st November by LOT Polish Airlines
Turkish Airlines and Pegasus Airlines will serve both departing and arriving passengers between Istanbul and Tbilisi. Photo: Getty Images
The only exception to the charter rule in Tbilisi, whereby passengers may only depart and not arrive, is listed for the flights to Istanbul Airport (IST). This airport will be served from Tbilisi as follows:
Pegasus Airlines will fly twice a week as a departing-only charter service, except on 18th and 25th November, when it will be both a departing and an arriving service.
Turkish Airlines will fly as a departing-only service twice weekly too, but it will be serving both departing and arriving passengers on a total of four occasions: 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th November.
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