BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec.23
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Air Astana group of companies is expecting that the number of passengers transported by Air Astana and Flyarystan airline companies will exceed five million passengers in 2019, which is 17 percent more than in 2018, head of Air Astana told Trend.
As noted by Air Astana CEO Peter Foster, this year was crucial for the group of companies, after a new FlyArystan lowcoster airline was launched on May 1, 2019.
“Since then the lowcoster has reached great achievements. The average cost of Air Astana group of companies’ tickets dropped by 13 percent in 2019, which created more transportation opportunities for Kazakhs,” Foster said.
This year fleet of Air Astana company was expanded by four Airbus A320/321neo planes, including А321LR and four Embraer 190-Е2 planes. Thus, the average age of the fleet amounted to 6.5 years.
“Number of flights to Delhi, Dubai, Istanbul, Dushanbe, Bishkek, Seoul, Moscow, Tashkent and Tbilisi was increased, and charter flights from Almaty and Nur-Sultan to Sharm El-Sheikh and from Almaty to Bodrum were launched,” the CEO said.
In November this year, the engineering department carried out a difficult type of repair: C-check of Airbus A320neo plane in Almaty airport. The S7 Technics company provided support in the repair.
Implementation of ab-initio program continues, which was initiated in2008 to train new generation of professional Kazakh pilots. Some 280 students undergone the training during the program’s implementation. This year 23 students from Ireland, Spain and Finland are undergoing the training, there are plans to provide training to 40 students a year during next five years.
Air Astana is planning to launch direct flight from Almaty to France on June 3, 2020, and is looking to launch more flights on popular tourist routes in 2020. Airline company’s fleet will include 42 planes in 2020, whereas its route network will cover 63 routes.
FlyArystan lowcoster is planning to carry 700,000 passengers by the end of 2019. Over 800,000 tickets were sold already, and over 50 percent of them cost less than 10,000 tenge ($26).
FlyArystan will expand routes network to 13 routes before the end of 2019, and on Dec. 13, 2019 the company has launched flights on its first international route (Nur-Sultan – Moscow).
The company’s fleet will include 10 planes in 2020, which will allow to implement flights on up to 40 routes.
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