Air Astana is celebrating 13 years of operations in India this year. Kazakhstan’s full service carrier commenced operations in India in 2014 with flights between Almaty and New Delhi. The airline slowly expanded to 10 flights between the two countries each week, including a daily service between Astana and New Delhi. The thrice weekly service, launched in July 2017, currently operates using Airbus A320 and Embraer 190 aircraft. Speaking about the expansion plans at a recent event in New Delhi, Peter Foster, president and chief executive officer, Air Astana, stated, “We have seen continued growth from the India market and our priority is to increase the number of Astana-New Delhi flights from three to five times a week. We further look to expand our network to Mumbai latest by 2019.”
The total number of passengers carried between Kazakhstan and India during 2017 reached 43,459, recording an increase of 43 per cent compared to 2016. Furthermore, passengers travelling via Almaty can connect with other international destinations such as Moscow, St Petersburg, Kiev, Instanbul, Tbilisi and Bishkek. On the other hand, passengers travelling via Astana are offered a similar set of destinations. Last year’s number of transit passengers travelling from New Delhi via Almaty grew by 33 per cent year over year ago. Foster mentioned, “While we cannot compete with other international carriers in the global market, we surely have the best connections in Northern Asia that we have promoted for the Indian segment. Currently we are bringing major traffic to India but we would also like to promote our connections in the India market. Our major global transit traffic is seen moving towards countries like Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Instanbul etc. We would like to see more growth in this segment from India.”
Commenting on the growth in the India market, Bulat Sarsenbayev, ambassador extraordinary and pleniopotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to India, stated, “We issued 12,000 Indian visas last year and the first half of 2017 has already reached 8,500 Indian tourist arrivals. This shows that India is a great destination which has potential. Direct connections to Almaty and Astana have surely helped to take numbers further this year and we look forward to more growth.”