Georgian Airways

Is Georgian Airways safe?

Reasonably, with one serious mark on its record. Georgia's main airline has passed IATA's IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, no Georgian airline is on the EU's safety blacklist, and it flies scheduled services to Amsterdam, Paris and Vienna. But in 2011 a Georgian Airways regional jet flying for the United Nations crashed at Kinshasa, killing 32 people, and the investigation found fault with the airline's training as well as with the crew. Its fleet is older Boeings, and it flies regularly into Russia. We score it 70, above SCAT (64) and below Azerbaijan Airlines (73), its neighbour across the Caucasus.

The Kinshasa crash in 2011

The aircraft was a Bombardier CRJ100 registered in Georgia, flown by a Georgian Airways crew under a contract with MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On 4 April 2011 it was returning from Kisangani to Kinshasa with 29 passengers and 4 crew. The weather radar showed severe storms over the airport. The crew still continued, flew a high-speed approach off the localizer, and descended below the minimum altitude in heavy rain without seeing the runway. They started a go-around at about 224 feet. Climbing through about 400 feet, the jet hit what the investigators called a microburst-like downdraft, pitched nose down and struck the ground. One passenger survived.

Congo's investigators blamed the microburst first, but they listed contributing factors that matter for this page: the crew's decision to press on into weather on their radar, a lack of supervision by the operator, an inadequate Georgian Airways training programme for upgrading pilots to captain, and a lack of effective oversight by Georgia's civil aviation authority. Airport weather equipment and air traffic control also fell short.

Because Georgian Airways supplied the aircraft and crew, the crash counts on its page under our rules for wet-leased flights. It was 15 and a half years ago, and we found no fatal accident or hull lossHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary since. With no fatal accident in the last 15 years, the accident record sits in our 80–94 band, but one fatal crash still inside our 20-year window, with findings against the airline's own training and supervision, keeps it at the floor, 80. That is the same level as Airblue, whose one fatal crash came in 2010.

How old is the fleet?

All the airline's jets are older-generation types. Its fleet page lists two Boeing 737-700s, two 737-800s, a 767-300, a CRJ200 and a Bombardier Global 6000 business jet for VIP charters. That page has not been updated since 2023: a 737-900 that AeroInside reported in June 2026 does not appear on it, so the real fleet is probably a little different. Georgian Airways publishes no average age.

The 737 Next Generation is a reliable design still flown by many large airlines, but the fleet has no 737 MAX, A320neo or other current type. The fleet scores 55. The airline's own maintenance centre in Tbilisi holds an EASA Part-145 approval and does line maintenance and A-checks for its own 737s and CRJs and for visiting airlines.

Which incidents should you know about?

We found two in the last ten years, neither with injuries reported:

• Tbilisi, June 2026. A 737-900 on the morning flight to Moscow Vnukovo stopped climbing at about 15,000 feet with a cabin pressure problem. The passenger oxygen masks dropped, and the crew descended and landed back in Tbilisi 17 minutes after take-off. Passengers went on to Moscow on a 737-800 about three hours late.
• Tbilisi, September 2021. A 737-800 bound for Vienna with 180 people on board stopped its climb at 7,000 feet with a landing gear problem, held to burn off fuel and landed back in Tbilisi.

Both were handled by the book. Georgia publishes few incident reports, so we treat a short list as thin rather than clean. Serious incidents score 66, the same level we give other airlines in the region with quiet but poorly reported records.

Europe and Russia on one network

Georgian Airways is unusual in flying to both. From Tbilisi it serves Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Rome, Nice and Milan-Bergamo, which requires approval from EASA as a third-country operator, and also Moscow, St Petersburg and Novosibirsk. EASA's conflict-zone bulletin for Russian airspace, valid to 31 January 2027, warns that drone attacks can close major airports at short notice and that GNSS jamming is common. The airline also flies to Tel Aviv, where it cancelled flights in June 2025 because its insurer would not cover them and Israel gave no safety guarantee; flights resumed on 2 July. Tbilisi itself is a modern airport. The environment scores 56.

Regulator and audits

No Georgian airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary of June 2026. Georgia does not appear on the FAA's IASAFAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary list, which only means no Georgian airline flies to the US. Georgian Airways has been an IATA member since 2010, and membership requires IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. That outside audit is the strongest check we can see. The Kinshasa report's criticism of Georgian oversight is from 2014, and we found no later finding, so oversight scores 72, the same as the Kazakh airlines.

How to fly Georgian Airways sensibly

• For trips to the EU, it is a straightforward choice. These flights use the same 737s as the rest of the network, under EASA third-country approval.
• On Moscow or St Petersburg flights, allow for disruption. Drone alerts can close Russian airports for hours, and diversions happen. Do not book a tight onward connection.
• For Tel Aviv, check the day before. The airline has cancelled flights at short notice when the regional security situation changed.

How we scored it

The accident record (80: no fatal accident in 15 years) is the strongest factor, held at the floor of its band by the 2011 Kinshasa crash. Oversight (72) rests on IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary and EU access, the fleet (55) is all older types, incidents (66) are a thin record, and the environment (56) reflects the Russian routes. Overall 70.