Construction of the New Tashkent International Airport is set to begin in June 2026, according to Deputy Minister of Transport Jasurbek Choriyev, who confirmed the timeline on May 5 at the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank’s annual meeting in Samarkand, UzDaily reported. The announcement marks the formal mobilisation of a project that has been years in preparation — and one that sits at the centre of a far larger transformation reshaping how Uzbekistan positions itself on the global travel and investment map.
The airport in numbers
The public-private partnership agreement is in its final stage and is expected to be signed by mid-May, after which it will undergo government review before construction begins. The project will be carried out in four phases, with the first phase — worth $2.5bn — covering the airport terminal complex and airfield infrastructure.
The scale of what phase one alone will deliver is significant. Once completed, the airport will handle up to 20 million passengers and 129,000 tons of cargo annually, support up to 30 takeoffs and landings per hour, feature 14 telescopic jet bridges, and accommodate 62 aircraft simultaneously across a 1,300-hectare site in the Urtachirchik and Kuyichirchik districts of the Tashkent region. The duty-free zone alone will cover 46,000 square metres.
The case for the project is built on a traffic trajectory that is difficult to ignore. Over the past eight years, passenger traffic in Tashkent has tripled to 9 million passengers per year, and by 2040 that figure is expected to exceed 24 million. The existing airport, which is designed to handle 11 million passengers annually and sits within the city limits, is expected to reach capacity by 2029. Authorities estimate annual passenger growth at around 30%, and the government is not providing guarantees on airport traffic volumes — a notable signal of confidence in organic demand.
The consortium
The investor consortium includes Vision Invest from Saudi Arabia with a 45% stake, Japan’s Sojitz Corporation with 30%, Incheon International Airport Corporation from South Korea with 15%, and Uzbekistan Airports with 10%.
Each partner brings specific weight to the project. Sojitz Corporation, established in 2004, operates across energy, infrastructure, industry, agriculture, and healthcare, with total assets of $19.2bn and a workforce of 25,300 employees. The company has announced plans to invest $200mn in the construction of the new airport, with total investments in Uzbekistan potentially reaching $1bn. Incheon International Airport Corporation won the tender for the project in April 2025 and will build and manage the new passenger and cargo terminals, running them for a period of 19 years, with ground handling services included in the agreement. In 2024, Incheon International Airport Corporation’s passenger traffic exceeded 70 million. The company also won the tender to modernise Urgench International Airport, which it will manage until 2047, investing $115mn.
Sustainability and design standards
The airport is being positioned as a regional benchmark in green aviation infrastructure. It will be fully powered by renewable energy sources, becoming the first airport in the country to operate entirely on green energy. The facility will fully comply with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards in terms of service quality, flight safety, and technical regulations, and will be equipped with advanced aeronautical and meteorological systems allowing aircraft to land and take off in all weather conditions.
Multimodal connectivity
The airport is not being built as a standalone facility. The new complex will connect directly to the Tashkent–Samarkand, Tashkent–Andijan, and Tashkent–Bustonlik highways. A railway station for high-speed trains will also be built nearby, and shuttle bus services will be established between the centres of Tashkent and New Tashkent. This multimodal approach mirrors the model of the airport’s most directly comparable reference point — Incheon itself, which built its regional dominance as much on ground connectivity as on airside capacity.
The airport within the broader New Tashkent project
The airport does not exist in isolation. It is being built as the aviation gateway to New Tashkent — a purpose-built city that represents one of the most ambitious urban development programmes currently underway in Central Asia. The project officially began in March 2023, when the foundation stone was laid, and is being implemented under Tashkent’s Master Plan through 2045.
Covering 25,000 hectares and developed east of the current capital between the Chirchiq and Karasu rivers, New Tashkent is designed by UK-based Cross Works and combines sustainable urbanism, smart infrastructure, and traditional Uzbek mahalla community principles, with a long-term population target of 2.5 million residents.
By the end of 2025, construction in New Tashkent had reached 3 million square metres. Several ministries and government agencies have begun operating from temporary facilities, and 24 commercial lots sold through auctions had secured €1.72bn in investment contracts.
In the administrative zone, more than 60 buildings are planned for government agencies, and investment agreements worth $554mn have already been signed for 13 commercial lots. Hotels, restaurants, and architecturally distinctive buildings are planned, positioned to transform the area into a new centre for tourism. Construction is expected to employ 160,000 people, with the city ultimately generating hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs.
A $250mn water park and resort is also planned for New Tashkent, as the government works to diversify its tourism offer beyond the country’s established Silk Road heritage circuit.
More than 20% of the city’s land is designated as open space, with a network of artificial canals channelling water through the city from mountain streams to the north, creating shaded zones and a continuous green ecosystem designed to moderate temperatures across the dry plains.
Economic impact
According to official estimates, the airport project’s economic impact alone will exceed $27bn, boosting employment and stimulating growth in services, industry, and tourism.
The aviation context reinforces the urgency. Over the next five years, the number of aircraft in Uzbekistan’s national fleet is planned to increase to 180, routes to 230, and the total volume of domestic and international flights to reach 200,000 per year. Uzbekistan is currently served by 51 foreign airlines, and the size of the national fleet has quadrupled since the liberalisation of its aviation and tourism industries began in 2018.
For travel operators, hoteliers, and investors tracking Central Asia’s emergence as a serious travel market, the New Tashkent airport is not merely an infrastructure project — it is the load-bearing piece of a bet that Uzbekistan is placing on its ability to become the region’s dominant gateway.