Ilyushin Il-114 Trip Report
TAS-UGC (Tashkent to Urgench)
Flight time: 2h 20m officially

Apologies for the pics - all taken with a cameraphone. I have a philosophy about that (explained elsewhere), and on Uzbekistan Airways discretion is important when taking pictures.

This trip report forms a part of my summer travels.


I was lucky to get the chance to fly on the Il-114 on a recent trip to Uzbekistan. The Il-114 is a about as rare a passenger aircraft as it these days, with apparently only 7 in operation (or 4 in active operation), all with Uzbekistan Airways. I’ve found one trip report for it online, an excellent one on airliners.net that also features some other Uzbekistan Airways planes (all unfortunately retired by now): http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo...d.main/152732/



It’s fairly new for a Russian aircraft, having been designed towards the end of the Soviet Union, first flight in 1990, delayed for about 7 years and finally certified for commercial service in 1997. Unfortunately, take up of the plane wasn’t that great, with Uzbekistan Airways and the now defunct Vyborg Airlines being the only two customers. The Uzbek order was probably motivated by the fact that the plane was produced in Tashkent as well. 20 planes were made, most for government and military purposes. Currently (according to Wikipedia) Uzbekistan Airways has 7 aircraft of which 4 are in use and 3 are stored for spare parts or to replace broken planes.

Most important for me was the west Uzbek city of Khiva, formerly the center of one of three khanates that ruled Uzbekistan (along with Bukhara and Kokand). My travel options were to either take a bus for 20 hours (with no toilets and no air-conditioning, ruled that one out immediately), a train for about the same time or to fly. I took a look at flights, and while they were expensive at around 160 euros roundtrip (foreigner prices for domestic flights in Uzbekistan), they would also give me the chance to fly the Il-114. At the time of booking, I was unaware as to just how rare the Il-114 was, I just wanted to fly a Russian aircraft. I booked my tickets online through Opodo, which meant I had to pay more than if I had gone to the ticket office in Tashkent but it also allowed me to leave the next day instead of waiting an extra day. As Khiva is a little bit out of the way, the flight instead went to the regional transport hub of Urgench, located about 35km away from Khiva. Trains go there as well, as do most buses and shared taxis. From Urgench Airport to Khiva, most tourists seemed to take ripoff taxis costing up to $35. I took a taxi for 5000 som (1 euro) to Urgench bazaar and a trolley bus from there to Khiva. It took about twice as long as a taxi would have not including all the time I spent haggling, but $34 is like 4 days worth of food for me in Uzbekistan and I refuse to support the taxis that make a living ripping off tourists. From Khiva back to the airport, the taxi cost me 25000 som (5 euros), and even that was probably overpaying by 1 euro,.

My flight was due to depart at 13:10 from the domestic terminal while my friend was leaving at 12:00 from the international terminal, so we headed to the airport together. We got charged a foreigner price (12000 som = 2.5 euros) for the “taxi” (in Uzbekistan and most CIS countries, this just means any car) from near Chorsu Bazaar to the airport, which to be honest wasn’t that much over what I think the local price should have been (8000-10000 som). Going to the airport we passed the famous Tashkent Airport “Good Luck” advertisement but I failed to get a photo of it, though I managed on my way out of Uzbekistan.



Security for the international terminal was typically tight in Uzbekistan, with a bag, document and passport check before entering the building and when entering the building. I managed to get in without a flight ticket by just following the passenger with a valid international ticket (honestly, they just asked “where are you flying?” instead of asking for the ticket). We decided not to risk me going into the actual building, though I probably could have done that as well. Uzbekistan is all about an illusion of security, while most actual bag checks on the metro and so on are not very thorough at all and as a foreigner you’re often just let through without any checks.

I was now confronted with the challenge of getting from the international terminal at TAS to the domestic one. Luckily, I had a lot of time for this as we had go to the airport very fast and said our good byes quite fast as well. In all their genius, Uzbekistan’s airport builders had placed the domestic terminal on the other side of the airport as the international terminal even though there don’t seem to be any visible space constraints (presumably the same guys built 2 separate buildings for arrivals and departures in many regional airports like UGC). Anyway, I asked a few taxis as a joke. I knew the cost should be like 3000 som, maximum 5000, but of course I was quoted things like $20 (=90000 som) or 25,000 som. I said .... it, I have time and headed to the bus stop in front of the terminal. The bus stop surprisingly had bus routes, and it turns out that two buses, 11 and 77 travel to the domestic terminal. I got on one, asked the driver to make sure the direction was correct and made it to the terminal in about 15 minutes.

Got to the domestic terminal at around 10am and much to my surprise there were already many people waiting there, even though the next flight (to Nukus at 12:30) hadn’t even started check in yet. There are no shops in the terminal by the way, there’s a vending machine and a pharmacy and a restaurant that’s closed in the pre-security area and just vending machines and a place for a café in the post-security area. The vending machine is super cheap though, basically matching grocery store prices.

Eventually I managed to check in with no problems and went through security. One note about the photos. In Uzbekistan they CAN be very strict about taking photos. It turns out that this time they weren’t, but I was still being discreet about it until I got to the tarmac when I just went all out because others were doing the same. On the plane, they told me photography is not allowed (in the plane… taking pictures of the scenery is apparently fine) so I had to take all the pics secretly.

Boarding was called about 20 minutes prior to departure and we were bussed to the airplane which was like 50 meters from the terminal. The first thing I noticed on the plane is that they have space for cargo in the plane itself at the front, and I think our bags were kept there. In the cabin itself, I was treated to a very Soviet first impression as the row 1 seats were folded down, which I’ve never seen on a western airplane but always see when looking at pictures of Soviet aircraft. I sat down in my seat, and was extremely impressed by the legroom. Much much better than most commercial aircraft. The seats are also quite high, so there’s room underneath the seat in front for both my feet and a bag (not possible on an A320). There are personal air vents which are not intuitive to operate but I managed to get it working quite fast.

A drink (water, sprite, coke, Fanta) is served to everyone while on the ground. This is apparently standard practice on Uzbekistan Airways flights. The plane is super noisy when taking off and for the first time in a long time, I had to actively do something to keep my ears from popping during takeoff. After takeoff, I had a look at the toilet – very Soviet, and soon after the crew served a snack. The snack was basically another drink and a simple cheese sandwich. Ok, not great, but for a short haul domestic flight I’ll take it. I spent the rest of the flight taking photos and then quickly transferring the photos onto my laptop incase my phone would get searched after taking another photo (the one photo they made me delete, I was scared that after deleting it they would notice that the next one was also of the interior of the aircraft). The crew were better than most Uzbekistan Airways flights, but still not great, I’d say slightly better than BA and maybe slightly worse than Finnair.

I had a quick read of the inflight magazine, which was a complete joke. They had their obligatory propaganda about how great Islam Karimov is and how he got “reelected”. Their article interviewing a flight attendant pretty much admitted that the reason she got the job was because she was good looking (“but these days it’s much harder”), talked a lot about the “difficult” parts of a flight attendant’s job (staying hydrated for example, lifting bags into the overheard lockers lol) and just in general didn’t inspire any confidence in me that these people would have any idea what to do if there was an emergency. Oh well, maybe the pilots are better trained.

After landing, we had to wait a little bit on the plane (of course the Uzbeks all rushed to the front the moment the plane touched down) for them to presumably offload our bags from the front of the aircraft. This waiting didn’t really make the bags turn up any faster on the conveyor belt because we ended up waiting about 5 minutes for them. The whole conveyor belt idea at such a small airport after one 50 person plane lands seems like a bit unnecessary anyway, but I guess Uzbekistan wants to show people how “advanced” its airports are.

Overall, this was my best flight with Uzbekistan Airways. It was the only one during which the flight attendants showed even basic competence at their jobs. They spoke English, were friendly and actually made announcements about takeoff and landing before we actually took off or landed. I flew back with an A320 (via Bukhara) and later from Tashkent to Dubai on a 767 and on those flights, I'm fairly sure that if we had had some sort of emergency, I would have been better qualified than the flight attendants to help. And my only qualification is having been a passenger many times. Honestly the levels of incompetence on this airline are staggering, but maybe I'll write more about that later...

Click to enlarge the pics below - if they're not displaying properly, it's because imgur has been down today


Tashkent Airport International Terminal


Tashkent Airport Domestic Terminal


After security. Only place to buy snacks is the two vending machines, but they were really cheap (25 cents/1000 som for a sparkling water for example)



Il-114s lined up and a A320


The domestic terminal from the plane


Really good legroom - I'm tall and have quite long legs. Seats were high up as well




Confusingly, the seat number for the seat in front of you is directly facing you




Lunch/snack. The wet towel smelled really bad, sort of like damp clothes.


Joke of an inflight magazine (though tbf even Thai's inflight magazine is full of ridiculous propaganda)




Baggage claim at Urgench


Il-114s all lined up in a row (taken on the return flight which was flown with an A320)