BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 6
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Kazakhstan’s only lowcoster – FlyArystan company – made a decision to halt flights to country’s Taraz city as they have become unprofitable, the company told Trend.
The company said that the decision was made as a result of the COVID-19 related situation, as well as in line with the company’s plans to resume flights, the economic profitability of which will be a priority.
The company reminded that FlyArystan has started implementing flights from Almaty city to Taraz in May 2019, and from Nur-Sultan in October 2019. The company said that over 143,000 passengers were transported on these routes over the period from May last year.
“Taraz is a market quite sensitive to price changes. Often, the price that a customer is willing to pay does not cover the basic costs of a lowcost airline. In particular, we are talking about the cost of airport services on shorter routes, such as Taraz - Almaty, expenses of which account for one third of operating costs,” the company said.
In the future, the company added, the possibility of resuming flights to Taraz may be considered if economic conditions allow and if the costs of servicing these routes significantly decrease.
FlyArystan is the first and only low-cost air company of Kazakhstan. The company started selling tickets online in March 2019. The company said earlier that it is planning to resume flights after emergency state in Kazakhstan is lifted, i.e. on May 11.
In order to prevent coronavirus spreading in Kazakhstan, the number of flights was reduced by 438 flights per week on international destinations on 97 routes, which makes up 99 percent of all international flights implemented.
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Kazakhstan has reached 4,298. The first two cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Kazakhstan among those who arrived in Almaty city from Germany on March 13, 2020.
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