Central Asia airline expansion

Air Astana, Kazakhstan’s principal air carrier has launched new services from Almaty to Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, and Samara in southern Russia.  Both services will be operated by the airline’s new Embraer E190.  Flight time from Almaty to Tbilisi is 4hrs, and 3hrs 30mins to Samara.  They are configured with 97 seats in a two-class layout and will operate alongside the existing fleet of Airbus A320 Family aircraft on the regional network.  The fleet of E190s will grow to six aircraft by the end of 2012 and gradually replace the airline’s six Fokker 50 turboprops which will now be retired.

Air Astana says the launch of these new services represents another important step in a strategic plan to significantly grow its central Asia network.  This has already been seen with the rapid expansion of new services between Almaty to Baku, capital of Azerbaijan; Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan; Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan; St Petersburg in Russia; Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan; and Urumqi in western China. 

Air Astana is a joint venture between Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna (51%) and BAE Systems plc (49%).  The airline operates 24 aircraft on 23 domestic and 31 international routes from its hubs in Almaty, Astana and Atyrau. www.airastana.com

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