Air Astana Group Reports 79% Increase in Passengers in 2021

(04 Feb 2022)  The Air Astana Group carried 6,617 million passengers in 2021, an increase of 79% on 2020.

Air Astana carried 3,555 million passengers, an increase of 59%, whilst its relatively new low-cost subsidiary, FlyArystan, carried 3,062 million passengers, an increase of 109%.

The group carried 12,072 tons of cargo on scheduled flights and 6,700 tons on charter flights, increases of 30% and 45% respectively on last year's numbers.

Air Astana Airbus A321

Peter Foster, President and CEO, said, “These figures represent a strong recovery from the COVID19-affected 2020. Total carriage of more than 6.6 million customers is the highest ever recorded in the history of the airline. In large part this was driven by the strong performance of FlyArystan, which in only its second full year of operation carried almost as many customers as Air Astana, driven by low fares, mainly on routes within Kazakhstan, as a result of its ultra-competitive cost structure. FlyArystan is therefore on track to fulfill its core mission of increasing mobility by air across the country for Kazakhstan’s citizens.”

Air Astana operated scheduled flights to Batumi (Georgia), Podgorica (Montenegro), Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Phuket (Thailand) in 2021, as well as resuming services to Male, London, Delhi, Tbilisi (Georgia) and Dushanbe (Tajikistan).

During the year, FlyArystan inaugurated services to Kutaisi (Georgia) from three cities in Kazakhstan and launched 10 new domestic routes.

Air Astana added three Airbus A321LR and one Airbus A320 aircraft to the fleet in 2021.