Freight Air Astana to launch cargo division

The flag-carrier airline of Kazakhstan, Air Astana, has announced that it is currently planning a new international air cargo division. The cargo division will be operating with three converted Boeing 767-300 Freighter aircraft.

Due to the global health crisis, the airline has decided to launch Air Astana Cargo, as the demand for passenger flights heavily decreased. Instead, the demand for regional freight transport has been going through the roof in the past months.

In Almaty, the main operational base of Air Astana, the first Boeing 767-300 is currently being converted to a freighter aircraft. The airline released, that a semi-cargo configuration will be installed, meaning that the aircraft could be used for passenger services again in the future.

Zhanna Shayakhmetova, Director of Freight, Air Astana commented: “Air Astana has rapidly met the immediate heightened demand for air freight by operating a Boeing 767 passenger aircraft, but we must strictly enforce European Aviation Safety Agency weight and volume regulations regarding cargo placed on seats [...] Once we start operations with the converted semi-cargo Boeing 767 aircraft, we’ll be able to considerably increase the volume of transported goods and offer our customers more flexible conditions.”

The three Boeing 767-300 in the airline´s fleet, P4-KEA, P4-KEB and P4-KEC, were delivered between September 2013 and June 2014, are therefore 6,5 years old on average. Normally, the aircraft are equipped in a two-class configuration with 30 seats in business class and 193 in economy class.

Air Astana is the flag-carrier airline of Kazakhstan and was founded in August 2001. The operator commenced operations in May 2002 from its main hub at Almaty. Further focus airport is Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport.

The airline´s fleet currently consists of seven Airbus A320s, of which four are NEOs, eight A321s, of which six are NEOs, five Boeing 757-200s, the three 767-300s and, five Embraer ERJ-E2s and six Embraer ERJ-190s.