Kazakhstan’s SCAT To Add Eight 737 MAX Aircraft Before 2023

Kazakhstan’s SCAT is turning into the country’s fastest-growing airline. 

The carrier plans to increase its fleet by nine aircraft before the end of the year, the country’s minister of industry and infrastructure development Kairbek Uskenbayev revealed Aug. 18. SCAT is adding more aircraft than the country’s largest carrier, Air Astana, which plans to add five in 2022.

The first of SCAT’s nine new aircraft—its second Boeing 737-8—arrived in Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan on the same day. This aircraft, serial number 43332, was assembled in 2019 and initially destined for Belarus’ Belavia. But after that airline was slapped by Western sanctions, Air Lease Corporation found a customer for the aircraft in SCAT. The 737-8 was ferried from Seattle to Uzbekistan Airways Technics facility in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Aug. 5. There the aircraft’s original Belavia livery was repainted before handover to SCAT on Aug. 17.

The new aircraft has 174 passenger seats in a two-class configuration. This differs from SCAT’s first aircraft of the type, which it received in 2018, that seats 186 passengers in an all-economy configuration. The carrier also operates a 737-9.

A SCAT representative told Aviation Daily that the airline expects to get four more 737-8s and four 737-9s this year.

The airline now operates 27 aircraft including several 737NG and classic narrowbodies as well as six Bombardier CRJ 200 regional jets. Four Boeing 757s and a sole 767 are operated for leisure charter flights by its Sunday Airlines subsidiary.

SCAT’s hometown is Shymkent, Kazakhstan’s third-largest city, but the carrier is developing hubs in Nur-Sultan, the country’s largest city Almaty and Aktau. The airline transported 1.7 million passengers in the first half of 2022 and expects to have carried 2.7 million passengers by year-end, which would be 29% more than in 2021.