Air Astana Plans To Expand Fleet By 50% Through 2025

Kazakhstan’s largest airline Air Astana plans to expand its fleet to 59 aircraft through 2025, the carrier’s President and CEO Peter Foster said Aug 5.

Foster said Air Astana was expecting to add 24 new aircraft over the period—a mix of Airbus A320neo family aircraft from lessors and on-order Boeing 787s—that would both replace and expand its current fleet.

The new additions will increase Air Astana’s fleet by almost 50%. The carrier currently operates 38 aircraft: 30 A320neo family aircraft; three Boeing 767s; and five Embraer E190-E2s. Foster mentioned that the airline had hoped to already have two more A321LRs in its fleet but noted delivery of the aircraft from the lessor has been delayed.

Eleven A320s from the Air Astana fleet have been subleased to FlyArystan, its low-cost subsidiary which will benefit the most from the planned expansion. In October 2021, FlyArystan placed an order for 15 A320ceo/neo aircraft. The first airframe under the contract, a 7-year-old A320, arrived in early July. It will be joined by three new A320neos from the assembly line by the end of 2022, the airline told Aviation Week. 

According to Foster, FlyArystan is expected to operate 25 aircraft by 2025. At that point it could make sense for the LCC to be spun off as a separate legal entity, he said. FlyArystan now serves 30 domestic and 10 international destinations under the parent airline’s code.

Foster also explained why Air Astana had chosen not to follow through on its letter of intent to purchase 30 737-8s signed in 2019. He referred to large nations in close proximity to Kazakhstan that had not yet recertified the type. Kazakhstan borders China, where 737 MAX operations have not yet resumed despite an issued approval, and Russia, which recently approved only third-party operations for the type. “So, we had to stay with Airbus,” Foster said. 

Air Astana received its eighth A321LR in May and is waiting for two more airframes of the type this year. The airline now operates 18 PW-1100G-powered A320neos. Andrey Oliya, Air Astana’s director of maintenance, said that the airline has had some problems with the powerplants’ combustion chamber and vibration of the engine’s mount, so the airline has decided to increase the number of spare engines in its inventory from six to eight.

Three 787s are expected to arrive in the airline’s fleet in 2025, Foster said. They are expected to replace 767s and will give Air Astana the capacity to open flights to the U.S.

The CEO said that the fleet expansion will require the airline to hire an extra 300 pilots. The total number of employees is expected to grow from 6,000 to 10,000. Air Astana is constructing a new Airbus flight simulator center, which will be the first EASA and FAA-certified training facility in Kazakhstan. The airline also took a decision to launch a domestic training program for cabin crews who are currently trained in Germany. 

According to the Kazakhstan Civil Aviation Authority, domestic air traffic reached pre-pandemic levels in the first half of 2022. That was despite the social unrest that took place in January. 

Kazakhstan’s airlines carried 4.6 million passengers from January to June—2% more than in the same period of 2019. Of the passengers transported in the first half of 2022, Air Astana carried 1.8 million, while FlyArystan carried almost 1.4 million.