Air Astana | News, deals and offers from Air Astana

Air Astana was proud to win the award for Best e-Commerce Website in Kazakhstan at the annual Awards.kz 2008, which was held on 19 Nov 2008. Last year Air Astana won three awards in the same event: The Best Corporate Website; Discovery of the Year and 3rd place for the Kazakh language website.

On the 10th of November Air Astana opened its own sales and customer information office situated on Fumanova Street, Almaty. The opening event was marked by a ribbon cut ceremony, a lottery for all guests and an art exhibition by under privilege children of Almaty Oblast.

Air Astana has this month begun flying in the route Almaty – Bishkek, which will be operated 4 times a week on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday by turbo-propeller aircraft Fokker-50 (50 seats).

From 10 October 2008 at 17:16, Air Astana received the information from Aktau Airport that the runway will be closed during daytime starting from 15 October until 30 November 2008. The airport explains that the airport will be closed for maintenance because of “critical current condition of the runway”.

Air Astana has set up measures to help passengers travelling to Thailand with free rebooking, or cancellations for anyone booked to travel until end of September. To cancel a booking or to change the date of departure on the route Almaty-Bangkok-Almaty, passengers now can apply to the place of purchase of the ticket, where they will be provided with all possible assistance.

Air Astana, the flag carrier of the Republic of Kazakhstan, continued to experience strong growth during the first half of 2008, with available seat kilometers up by 20% to 4.2 billion compared to the same period in 2007.

Air Astana, Central Asia’s largest carrier, will further revolutionize its service to customers with an automated ticket change solution provided by Amadeus, the leading technology and distribution partner to the travel and tourism industry.

On 17 June 2008 at Astana’s International Airport, Air Astana presented a new Airbus A-320, symbolizing the development of regional and international aviation at the capital of Kazakhstan. The Airbus A-320 registered number Р4-WAS, “Whisky” was delivered from Airbus premises in Toulouse city to Astana to mark the 6th anniversary of the airline and 10th anniversary of Astana city.

On the 11 June on the board of national airline’s aircraft, Air Astana together with Voluntary Company of Mercy for Children‘s Summer Vacations promoted the actions of Air Astana’s gift to children.

In 2004, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), of which Air Astana is a member, set an ambitious goal to completely replace paper tickets with Electronic Tickets (E-Tickets) worldwide, by 1 June 2008.

The National Carrier of Kazakhstan has a social responsibility and considers the implementation of social projects as a very important task. This spring with the support of the Company three large projects were implemented. At the beginning of April Air Astana was an official carrier for the participants of a concert organised for the Families of children infected by the HIV-AIDS virus in the Southern region of Kazakhstan.

Kazkommertsbank and Air Astana signed an agreement, under which the processing centre of Kazkommertsbank will handle all internet payments in Kazakh for flights of the national carrier.

“Air Astana” JSC has started realization of the huge investment project aimed at aircraft anti-icing services improvements at the RK airports. The total cost of the project is almost 2 million USD.

Air Astana, the flag carrier of the Republic of Kazakhstan, achieved record growth during 2007, with available seat kilometers up by 42% to 6.5 billion compared to 2006. Passengers carried increased by 46% to 2.13 million, with associated revenue up by 48% for the year.

Air Astana, the rapidly-expanding flag carrier of Kazakhstan, has increased its Dubai flights to daily frequency to meet rising demand for travel to the central Asian republic, in partnership with its U.A.E General Sales Agency (GSA) Dnata Agencies.