Air Astana unveils major network expansion
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In celebrations of its 10 anniversary, Air Astana
announced a major network expansion. As part of the expansion plan, new services to be launched from Astana include to Baku (Azerbaijan), Beijing (China), Omsk (Russia), St Petersburg (Russia), Tashkent (Uzbekistan) and Tbilisi (Georgia) in the next few months, whilst a new Almaty to Hong Kong service will commence in July.
Air Astana placed orders for three Boeing 787 Dreamliners and four Boeing 767-300ER earlier this year, which will contribute towards the fleet growing to more than 40 aircraft by 2020.
The first three of six owned Airbus A320s will be delivered later this year, whilst the Embraer 190 fleet will grow to six aircraft by the end of 2012.
Alongside its fleet modernisation programme, Air Astana has also become a leader in developing regional air transport engineering capabilities, with one of the largest MRO facilities in Central Asia located in Almaty. It is also the only airline in the region with an in-house Ab-initio pilot training programme, with 35 cadets having already graduated to line flying and another 83 cadets training in Europe and the United States.
