Air Astana operates daily direct flight from Delhi (India) to Almaty( Kazakhstan) making it the preferred airlines of the Indians. India, being one of the key market for Air Astana, the Visa free access to the Indians has significantly boosted up the tourism and business for Kazakhstan. In an exclusive interview,Mr. Peter Foster, CEO, Air Astana shares details about on the various developments of the airlines and its future plans with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World Excerpts…
What is your strategy to enhance Air Astana presence in the Indian market?
There are certain things that I can’t unfortunately disclose because of the constraints that I’ve got over me. As you know, as the Accountable Manager for a UK listed company, there are certain things that I can’t say. So, I can’t talk specifically about our plans for working here until such time as I’m talking on a general basis to the market. But what I can say is this, the Indian market is fundamentally important to us. It’s a growth market and we’ve been in Delhi for many years.
We’ve expanded our operation into and out of Delhi over the years. Before the pandemic, we were right on the point of launching flights to Mumbai. That didn’t happen because of the pandemic but I think, we can be sufficiently clear that India is a key strategic priority for Air Astana.
After the exemption of the visa for the Indians by Kazakhstan, have you witnessed the growth in number of travellers?
Huge! Mostly the group travellers. Groups, individuals, families from all over India are now visiting Almaty & Astana which is great sign.
You mentioned about the direct flight for London with the modification of the aircraft. How important is the sector for Air Astana?
It’s an important route for us. I mean, there’s a lot of business links between the UK and Kazakhstan. There’s a lot of Kazakh students that study in the UK, a lot of Kazakh school children that are at school in the UK. The links have always been strong. And obviously, the company is quoted on the London stock market. But there’s a lot of business traffic, generally speaking, the services sector that comes from London to Kazakhstan.
So, all of the big four are all heavily represented here, of course, a lot of many of the investment banks do work in Kazakhstan. The Astana Financial Centre has been set up on the basis of the UK commercial law. So, the Court of Final Appeal are all UK judges. So, the links are strong between the UK and Kazakhstan.
What is the current ownership and shareholding structure of Air Astana?
On 9th February 2024, all the changes in the listing were completed. It was done around six to eight months ago. So, now it’s now 41% owned by Samruk Kazyna ( they’ve gone from 51% to 41%) , BAE went from 49% to 18%.Now, we have new share holders. We have the National Pension Fund here with 6.5%,we have the EBRD ( European Bank of Reconstruction Development) at 5%, we have a lot of not only investors out of London and we have a lot of retail investors here in Kazakhstan. And we have ourselves, of course, the staffs also have shares. So, the process is completed and now it’s a listed company in London Stock Exchange, Astana Stock Exchange and the Almaty Stock Exchange. In Kazakhstan, there are two stock exchanges, one in Almaty and the other one in Astana. So, we have listed on all three exchanges.
What regulatory approvals are required to modify the aircraft for operating between London and Astana?
Well remember, this modification is an Airbus modification. So, it’s an Airbus modification, of course, it has to have all general global approvals.
What type of fleets does Air Astana operates at present? Could you share details about the fleet expansion plans?
At present Air Astana have 57 aircrafts which is a mixed of Airbus and also 2-3 Embraer. The Embraer are leaving the fleet shortly. So, right now it’s Airbus. We have three Boeing 767s also and in fact, we have the newest passenger 767s in the world. We have the last three that came off the production line which are very good aircraft.
As part of our expansion plans, our fleet size will go up to 80 aircraft by the end of 2028. We’re not going to change the entire fleet between now and then. Yes, and to answer your question, the average age of the fleet at the moment is five years old. So, the fleet is a young fleet. And by the end of 2028, I think it’ll be slightly less than that, about four and a half years old.
That’s good. So, apart from the existing market, can you focus on the top three markets that definitely are your top priority markets right now?
Well, of course the Kazakhstan market is the number one. But in terms of our foreign markets, I won’t give you a rank, but I’ll just tell you what our key markets are Korea, India, the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. Turkey is a key market for us and the German market of course, is very important to us.
How Air Astana is managing it fleets in terms of maintenance as globally airlines are raining this issue?
The global issue is not correct and we should try to get our aircrafts corrected at our own because problems are there. It’s an issue, but it’s not global. Every airline is having that kind of issue. In terms of Air Astana it does affect us like it affects everybody. The main problem that we’ve got is specific to the Pratt & Whitney 1100 engine on the Airbus 320neo family, which, as you’ll be aware, is a problem with Indian carrier too. We are trying to mitigate it by getting more engines from Pratt & Whitney.
We have nine spare engines now and we have been bringing in CEO aircraft. As you know, the CEO is the previous generation Airbus 320, which is powered by the V2500 in our case. So, that’s the main mitigates that we’re trying to do.
You have also some codes share with any airlines or some partners?
Yes, we have a code share with Lufthansa to Frankfurt, we have a code share with Turkish Airlines into Istanbul. We have a code share with Asiana into Seoul, Korea and we will have a code share with Japan Airlines into Tokyo.
Any message or anything that you’d like to share with the Indian market especially?
I just want to repeat a couple of things. The first thing is that the Indian market is fundamental to us. And we’ve been in the Indian market now for over 20 years. We’re very happy to have been in the Indian market. And we see it as a great engine for growth.
We have a low-cost airline, FlyArystan that we operate from Delhi.We chose a huge debt of gratitude to Indigo because when we set it up, Flight Astana, I’m personally friendly with Mr. Rahul Bhatia. Okay. And he very kindly enabled us to come down and be trained by his people to our people because at that time, we didn’t have any low-cost experience.
So, we got a lot of training and time in India from Indigo because of his personal intervention. So, we’re very grateful to Indigo and Rahul Bhatia for that. And we have a long, fruitful, and positive association with India.And we look forward to that growing and becoming much more substantial as the future develops.
I read that somewhere you said the airline’s policy says that the airlines will be one of the finest airlines in Eurasia. Yes. So, what are the key steps that how you can achieve this landmark?
I think in terms of our products, we’ve now won the Skytrax Award for Best Airline. It used to be Best Airline Central Asia in India. It’s now Best Airline Central Asia in CIS. That’s the change of classification. Skytrax has recognised that we have the highest service delivery quality in the region, have for many, many years now. We now have a world-class airport at Almaty with a lounge that’s opening very shortly.
I think we are already the finest airline in our region. I think as we grow, we can take our position as one of the very best airlines in the world in terms of reliability, in terms of safety, in terms of service quality, in terms of professionalism. I think we are now on the cusp of taking our place as one of the most recognised and best airlines in the world.
