It’s an exciting period for aviation in Central Asia, as in recent times we’ve seen aircraft order announcements from Air Astana, Somon Air, and Uzbekistan Airways.
Continue reading: Very Nice: Kazakhstan’s Air Astana Orders Up To 18 Boeing 787-9s
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Why no Skyteam to Central Asia? I only see EK, LH, TK, and QR having flights to that region.
The alliance has always relied on Aeroflot, which had the region supremely covered.
China Eastern (SkyTeam) serves the region, along with lots of non-alliance airlines.
KLM used to fly directly from Amsterdam to Almaty for about 20 years and to Astana for a number of years also but discontinued those routes in 2017 because they weren't profitable, especially as the price of oil--Kazakhstan's largest industry--dropped. I flew that route a number of times in the 2000s and 2010s, and the flights were often more than half empty, were often cancelled at the last minute, and had departure and landing times that were very inconvenient (like 2am or 4am). So they now rely mainly on a codeshare with Air Astana.
He is my neighbor, Uzbekistan Airways. I get a window from a glass, he must get a window from a glass. I get a step, he must get a step. I get up to 18 Boeing 787-9s... he cannot afford. Great success!
Lucky,
You do know these orders don’t mean much, right?
It’s all for publicity. Perhaps you should track the orders of all airlines to Boeing & Airbus from 2020-present, and confirm if they actually got delivered.
Fun idea for you.
Start with Air Asia X and their “record” orders.
The overly long routing KLM would have to take to avoid Russian airspace will have also destroyed any chances of the route restarting
Too bad Almaty is by far one of the worst airports in the world. absolutely horrible. They did renovate the international terminal and that is much better than what it use to be, but the whole airport is a mess and overcrowded. Always a hard stand. its not a fun place to fly in and out of unfortunately.