World Monitor Mag, Industrial Overview WM_November_2018_WEB_Version | Page 118
Air Astana is pleased to announce that it is to launch
a low cost airline in the first half of 2019. The airline
will be called FlyArystan. It will operate a fleet of Airbus
A320 aircraft configured to an all-economy class of 180
seats. It will operate a classic LCC model, following the
examples of highly successful airlines such as easyjet,
Indigo, Cebu Pacific, and Air Asia. It will offer low airfares
– approximately half of what Air Astana offers today – on
mostly domestic routes – but it is expected to expand
onto regional international routes in the mid-term.
It will operate initially 4 aircraft, growing to a fleet of at
least 15 by 2022. FlyArystan will operate from multiple
aircraft bases in Kazakhstan with routes and aircraft
bases to be announced over the coming months.
FlyArystan’s management team has already been
appointed and is drawn from Air Astana’s senior local
managers, whom the airline has been developing for
the last 16 years. The team will be led by Tim Jordan,
a British-Australian national with more than 15
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years’ senior LCC management experience at Cebu
Pacific and Virgin Blue.
Although FlyArystan will be a low cost airline, with very
different service procedures to those of Air Astana, it is to
be stressed that as a division of Air Astana, there will be no
degradation of airline safety or reliability standards. All safety
standards and regulatory processes to which Air Astana is
subject, will automatically apply to FlyArystan. Finally, and as
usual with Air Astana, the project will be entirely self-funded.
FlyArystan will require no capital from shareholders, no state
subsidies or external financial support of any kind.
Peter Foster, President & CEO of Air Astana, was quoted as
saying “FlyArystan is the result of much serious thought and
internal business planning, and comes as a result of a rapidly
changing local and regional airline business environment. It
will be good for the mid to long-term prospects of Air Astana,
and we hope, very welcome to the Kazakhstan travelling
public, who will be able to benefit from significantly cheaper
airfares on domestic and regional routes”.