ANKARA, December 22. /TASS/. Turkey’s and Russia’s air transport authorities have signed a memorandum of intent to launch more regular flights between the two countries, Turkey’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said on Thursday.
Under the memorandum, the sides plan to launch regular air service from Istanbul to Moscow’s new Zhukovsky airport and to Grozny, the capital of Russia’s republic of Chechnya, and from Moscow to the Gazipasa airport in Turkey’s Alanya.
The memorandum crowned talks between Acting Director General of Civil Aviation Bahri Kesici and deputy head of the Russian transport ministry’s civil aviation department Sergei Seskutov. The sides discussed issues of expanding the number of destinations in air service between the two countries in the context of normalization of bilateral relations. Opening regular flights from the Gazipasa airport is of special interest for the Turkish side as it may help increase tourist flows from Russia to Turkey.