New route alert: Prague to Ulaanbaatar direct flights launching this June

Mongolia’s Eznis Airways company will introduce direct flights from Prague to Ulaanbaatar as of June. Direct flights are another step in developing Mongolian and Czech tourism after Mongolia lifted visa requirements for Czech tourists.

Details on the flight frequency and departure dates have not yet been announced. A bilateral agreement on direct flights was made in 2017, but the flights failed to materialize. There was renewed diplomatic interest in the idea in 2020, but the pandemic and other issues caused delays.

Mongolian students will come to Czechia starting in 2024 as part of a scholarship program. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský and his Mongolian counterpart Battsetseg Batmunkh announced the developments at a press conference after their talks in Prague yesterday. In addition to education, both foreign ministers discussed cooperation in trade and the environment.

"It is not widely known, but Czechia is home to the largest Mongolian community in the EU and the third largest in the world. Mongolia is also part of the Czech government program for skilled workers. Mongolian citizens contribute to the success of Czech companies, and they also gain valuable qualifications and a relationship with our country," Lipavský said at a press conference.

Czech-Mongolian business cooperation will focus on raw materials and mining. Discussions on this will continue at the next meeting of the Intergovernmental Joint Committee for Economic Cooperation in Ulaanbaatar in the autumn.

Batmunkh said Mongolia has mineral resources and thanks to Czech technology, the two countries can cooperate with each other in a mutually beneficial way. "After the transition to democracy, the Czech Republic was one of our main investors. For example, Czechs built the first state hospital in Mongolia," Batmunkh said. Mongolia became a democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.

Batmunkh thanked Czechia for its program to return Przewalski's horses, the last living wild horse species, to the wild. Prague Zoo won the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) Conservation Award for the project.

Lipavský also mentioned the planned expansion of security cooperation. For the first time since 2016, the Czech Republic will send observers to the Khaan Quest military exercise, which Mongolia and the U.S. hold in Mongolia every summer, he added.