Kazakhstan’s passenger traffic declined by three per cent in the first half of 2019

The numbers decreased despite the emergence of FlyArystan, the country's first low-cost carrier (FlyArystan)

Kazakhstan’s airlines passenger numbers declined by three per cent in the first six months of 2019, with 3.75 million people using the country’s air transport in the period, against 3.76 million last year, the energyprom.kz monitoring agency reports.

The numbers decreased despite the emergence of FlyArystan, the country’s first low-cost carrier (LCC), which commercial operations commenced on May 1 this year. The decline comes despite the fact that aggregate passenger traffic by all modes of transport increased by 2.7 per cent in the central Asian country during the first half of the year.

Nevertheless, passenger numbers through those Kazakh airports served by FlyArystan are on the up, with the LCC’s Almaty base airport enjoying a business growth of eight per cent in May, its first month of operations, followed by a 30 per cent improvement in June. Elsewhere in the country, flights to and from Taraz were enjoyed by 14,600 people in May and June – 3.6 times up year-on-year. Furthermore, at Karaganda, the increase was up by a factor of 1.5, to 35,900 passengers; Uralsk saw a 23 per cent (57,700) improvement; Pavlodar grew by 21 per cent (31,400); and Shymkent’s numbers grew by 13.8 per cent to 74,700 people.

In total, for the two months of the LCC’s operating activity, FlyArystan, the Air Astana subsidiary, carried some 127,000 passengers, of which 70,000 were served in June. Its most popular route is Almaty–Nur-Sultan, a rotation that experienced 40,000 passengers, or 33 per cent of the total passengers carried.