A new chapter in Eurasian air travel is emerging as Russia’s North Caucasus region accelerates investment in aviation infrastructure and route networks that could more tightly bind China, Russia, and Georgia. At the center of this shift is Makhachkala’s Uytash International Airport in Dagestan, where a major runway expansion, terminal upgrades, and new international routes are poised to reshape connectivity across the Caspian and the wider Caucasus corridor.

Makhachkala’s New Runway Signals Big-Hub Ambitions

Makhachkala’s Uytash Airport has moved from a regional outpost to a strategic project in Russia’s aviation map, with construction of a new runway now more than 90 percent complete and expected to enter service in the second half of 2026, well ahead of its original 2028 target. Russian contractor Mostotryad-99 says the rapid progress has been driven by new high-performance concrete paving technology that allows faster laying and improved surface quality, enabling the project to compress timelines while meeting stringent standards.

The runway’s design specifications are ambitious for a North Caucasus airport. At around 3,200 meters in length and 45 meters in width, it will be capable of handling almost all modern commercial aircraft types, including wide-body long-haul jets. That capacity marks a significant upgrade from Makhachkala’s current capabilities and positions the airport as a potential future hub for flights that stretch well beyond Russia’s borders, including to China, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Regional officials and airport management have framed the runway not as a stand-alone construction project but as the core of a broader modernization program. Alongside airfield works, navigation and safety systems are being upgraded to handle increased traffic and more complex international operations. The goal is to make Makhachkala the primary aviation gateway for Dagestan and a viable alternative to larger hubs in southern Russia for traffic moving between Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and China.

Terminal Expansion to Unlock International Growth

The airside transformation at Uytash Airport is being matched by significant changes in the passenger terminals. In early 2025, airport director Nikolay Subbotin publicly acknowledged that the existing international terminal was operating at its limits, unable to cope with steadily rising passenger numbers, and confirmed plans for a substantial expansion of international capacity alongside a major renovation of the domestic facilities.

Projections from airport management forecast passenger volumes climbing by about 5 percent in 2025 to roughly 3 million travelers, continuing a multi-year growth trend. Passenger traffic at Makhachkala has reportedly more than doubled over the last four years, driven in part by expanding domestic links and the airport’s growing role as a gateway to the Caspian coast and the mountain regions of Dagestan. Without added terminal space and improved processing infrastructure, that growth risked translating into congestion, delays, and diminished service quality.

The planned terminal works are designed to address these bottlenecks. Expansion of the international zone would create additional check-in, security, and passport control capacity, while also adding new gates and passenger amenities tailored to longer-haul and transfer traffic. The domestic terminal renovation, in turn, is expected to streamline flows for travelers connecting from within Russia to new international routes, a critical step if Makhachkala is to position itself as a genuine connecting hub rather than simply an endpoint.

New Routes from Makhachkala to the Wider Region

While the runway and terminal projects focus on infrastructure, Dagestan’s government is already working to match physical capacity with a more ambitious route network. In December 2025, Dagestan’s Prime Minister Abdulmuslim Abdulmuslimov disclosed that the republic was in talks to open regular flights from Makhachkala to Tehran and Tbilisi, highlighting both trade and tourism as key drivers. Officials have pointed out that Uytash’s rapid passenger growth and modernization make it an increasingly attractive partner for foreign carriers.

Tehran and Tbilisi would mark important milestones for Makhachkala’s international profile. An air link to Iran would reinforce its role along a north–south corridor running from the Caspian littoral down to the Persian Gulf, facilitating not only tourism but also business travel tied to energy, logistics, and agriculture. A route to Tbilisi, meanwhile, would knit Dagestan more tightly into the Caucasus tourism circuit, opening direct access to Georgia’s established visitor markets while offering Georgians and international tourists a new gateway to the mountains and coastline of Dagestan.

Current schedules already show Makhachkala operating direct services to more than 20 domestic destinations and several foreign countries, with airlines layering in additional routes into 2026. These include new or expanded links to cities such as Krasnodar, Mineralnye Vody, and Siberian centers, creating a denser domestic backbone that could feed passengers into any future international network. The shift from a purely domestic or Moscow-centric airport toward a diversified route map underlines how airport planners and regional authorities are thinking several years ahead, anticipating not only demand within Russia but potential flows across borders.

Georgia’s Sky Bridge to China Grows Stronger

Across the Greater Caucasus, Georgia has been quietly positioning itself as a bridge between China and Europe, and its air links reflect that pivot. Since 2023, China Southern Airlines has operated direct flights from Urumqi to Tbilisi, restoring a route that first opened in 2011 but was interrupted during the pandemic. In 2024, Air China announced a second direct air link from Urumqi to the Georgian capital, with several weekly rotations, signaling growing Chinese interest in Georgia as a tourism and investment destination.

The impact of these routes on traveler flows has been striking. Georgian data cited by industry outlets shows that visitor arrivals from China surged in 2023, increasing several-fold compared with the previous year as pandemic-era trip suppression unwound and Chinese tourists looked for new destinations. Georgia’s appeal lies in a mix of cultural heritage, relatively liberal visa policies, and its positioning as a gateway where Asian, European, and Eurasian influences intersect.

For China, Georgia offers both tourism and strategic benefits. Passenger services from Xinjiang into the Caucasus dovetail with the overland and maritime corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative, and air links help support expanding trade, logistics, and project activity. Tbilisi has also emerged as an en-route stop for cargo flights shuttling goods from western China into Central and Eastern Europe, underscoring Georgia’s role as a multimodal hub. In that context, new connectivity via Makhachkala and the wider North Caucasus could create additional options for Chinese and Georgian carriers to stitch together regional networks.

Any discussion of connectivity between Russia and Georgia must grapple with a complicated political context and the unresolved status of regions such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In May 2025, Russia resumed direct regular flights between Moscow and the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi for the first time in more than three decades, drawing sharp criticism from the Georgian government. Georgia maintains that the operation of Sukhumi’s airport without its consent violates international norms and its own national legislation.

Despite these objections, Russian aviation authorities report that tens of thousands of passengers have already traveled on routes linking Russian cities to Abkhazia since the reopening of Sukhumi airport. Multiple Russian carriers, many under Western sanctions and barred from European Union airspace, serve the destination from Moscow and several regional cities. For Moscow, these flights are part of a broader strategy to deepen integration with the breakaway region, while for Tbilisi they represent a challenge to sovereignty and airspace governance.

The political sensitivities have not, however, halted Georgia’s broader aviation outreach. Officials in Tbilisi continue to promote the country as a neutral, business-friendly hub in the Caucasus, actively courting carriers from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In this environment, any future direct route between Makhachkala and Tbilisi would carry symbolic weight far beyond its passenger numbers. It would link a rapidly developing Russian regional hub with Georgia’s capital at a time when relations between Moscow and Tbilisi remain tested, potentially serving both economic practicalities and quiet diplomatic signaling.

Security Headwinds and Operational Disruptions

The North Caucasus has long existed at the intersection of grand connectivity projects and very real security concerns, and recent developments at regional airports highlight the fragility of aviation growth in a contested environment. In October 2025, Russia’s federal air transport agency imposed temporary restrictions on flights at airports in Grozny, Makhachkala, and Vladikavkaz, citing the need to ensure safety after air defense forces reported repelling a drone attack in the neighboring Rostov region.

During the alert, airports in Chechnya, Dagestan, and North Ossetia were temporarily closed to arrivals and departures, while local authorities warned residents about possible mobile communication disruptions as security services implemented emergency protocols. These interruptions, though temporary, served as a reminder that the region’s burgeoning air networks remain vulnerable to the broader security environment created by Russia’s war in Ukraine and rising drone activity near critical infrastructure.

For airlines and passengers, such disruptions translate into cancellations, diversions, and uncertainty, potentially undermining confidence in new routes. Airport operators in Makhachkala and elsewhere in the North Caucasus must therefore pair expansion plans with investments in hardened infrastructure, upgraded air defense coordination, and robust contingency planning. Without credible assurances on safety and reliability, the promise of new connectivity with Georgia, China, or other neighbors will be harder to fully realize.

China–Russia Aviation Rethinks Its Eurasian Routes

On the China–Russia axis, broader shifts in global aviation are reshaping how carriers think about Eurasian connectivity. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, international sanctions, airspace closures, and rerouted long-haul flights have forced airlines to reconsider traditional corridors across northern Eurasia. While Western carriers now bypass Russian airspace entirely on East Asia routes, Chinese and Russian airlines have continued to use it, gaining some competitive advantages on flight times and operating costs.

Within this reconfigured map, secondary and regional hubs have begun to assume greater importance. Airports in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the North Caucasus are vying to capture traffic that might previously have flowed through larger, now-constrained hubs. Makhachkala’s rapid runway build-out and terminal upgrades fit into this broader pattern: by offering a modernized airport with both domestic feed and new international links, Dagestan is hoping to plug itself into emerging east–west and north–south itineraries that involve Chinese, Russian, and potentially Georgian carriers.

For Chinese travelers and businesses, this could eventually translate into new multi-stop options combining flights to Tbilisi or other Georgian cities with connections through Russian regional airports to the Caspian coast, the North Caucasus mountains, or deeper into Russia. For Russian passengers, it could offer more direct access to Chinese destinations via a network of regional gateways rather than relying solely on Moscow and St Petersburg, particularly as some Russian carriers look for new markets outside heavily sanctioned Western routes.

A New Caspian–Caucasus Corridor Takes Shape

The combined effect of these developments is the gradual emergence of a new Caspian–Caucasus aviation corridor that links China, Russia, and Georgia in more complex and flexible ways. Makhachkala, with its impending wide-body capable runway and expanded terminal, is positioning itself as one of the key nodes, while Tbilisi’s strengthening ties with Chinese carriers and Georgia’s role as a cargo staging point give it added weight on the southern flank of the Caucasus.

The success of this corridor will depend on several variables that extend well beyond airport construction schedules. Political relations between Russia and Georgia, the trajectory of sanctions affecting Russian airlines, the pace of Chinese outbound tourism recovery, and the security climate in the North Caucasus will all shape how quickly and how fully new routes can be rolled out. Negotiations over rights for direct flights, code-share agreements, and the willingness of carriers to deploy aircraft on new sectors will provide tangible signals of how far the new era of connectivity is progressing.

Nonetheless, the direction of travel is clear. With Uytash Airport on course to complete its runway years ahead of schedule, Dagestan’s government courting links to Tehran and Tbilisi, and Georgia deepening its own air connections with Chinese cities, the region’s air transport landscape is undergoing a structural shift. For travelers, that promises more route options and easier access to a part of Eurasia that has often been difficult to reach. For governments and airlines, it opens a new competitive arena where infrastructure, diplomacy, and commercial strategy meet at 30,000 feet.