Airports in Kyrgyzstan served over 1.3M passengers in six months

Bishkek and Osh (pictured) are accountable for almost 100% of all traffic served by seven of the country’s airports (Photo by Manas International Airport)

Manas International Airport (MIA), the company responsible for managing 11 airports in Kyrgyzstan, reported having served 1.317 million passengers in the first half of 2016. More than 67% of the traffic was served on international routes. The country’s main airport, in Kyrgyzstan’s capital of Bishkek was accountable for serving 60% of MIA’s total traffic. Only seven out of 11 airports were operational from January to June this year.

At the end of the first six months Bishkek Airport served 780,000 passengers. Second largest airport of Osh, at the homonymous city 300 km south-west of Bishkek served 525,000 passengers, which comes close to the remaining 40% of MIA’s traffic. So the third largest airport, Batken, 450 km from Bishkek, lags far behind the first two with just 10,000 passengers, or 0.75% of the total traffic, served.

Two more airports – Dzhalal-Abad and Isfana – served 1,100 and 797 passengers, respectively. The remaining two showed more than modest results – 123 passengers at Issyk-Kul and 72 passengers at Karakol. “The latter two work face a strong seasonality. Karakol works mainly in the winter, and Issyk-Kul – in the summer tourist season. Issyk-Kul was under reconstruction, as Kyrgyz government is paying special attention at its development. So it only opened in June, not May as it was last year,” MIA’s press secretary Aliya Kurbanova told Russian Aviation Insider.

About a decade ago MIA controlled 26 airports. Now out of 11 it is responsible for, four did not serve a single passenger in six months. These are airports in Naryn, Kazarman, Talas and Kerben. The last two have lost their certificates.

MIA did not provide operational statistics for the same period last year, making it impossible to assess the year-on-year dynamics. AT the end of last year MIA’s traffic reached the 3 million passenger milestone for the first time, 2.4% more than in 2014.

The population of Kyrgyzstan stood at 5.895 million people last year. According to the data of National Statistics Committee of Kyrgyzstan, in the period from January to June cumulative traffic of all types of transport exceeded last year’s results by 3.3%.