With Russia closed, Kazakh Airline faces long slog to Europe

Kazakhstan’s Air Astana pledged to stick with expansion plans despite suffering extreme disruption to its routes and travel times following the invasion of Ukraine. The state-owned company will focus on domestic growth and Asian services after the shuttering of Russian airspace added 90 minutes to trips to Frankfurt and Amsterdam, boosting the flight time by 20%, and forced London-bound jets to refuel en route, CEO Peter Foster saidw. Kazakhstan’s Air Astana pledged to stick with expansion plans despite suffering extreme disruption to its routes and travel times following the invasion of Ukraine. The state-owned company will focus on domestic growth and Asian services after the shuttering of Russian airspace added 90 minutes to trips to Frankfurt and Amsterdam, boosting the flight time by 20%, and forced London-bound jets to refuel en route, CEO Peter Foster said in an interview. Still, there are no immediate plans to convert a letter of intent for 30 single-aisle Boeing 737 Max jets into firm orders, and Foster said that while demand is holding up, it’s too early to assess prospects for the summer. Kazakhstan’s sparse population and location far from major cities has led it to operate narrow-body planes at the limit of their range. At the same time, it has made a virtue of its position south of the Russian landmass to provide one-stop links between locations such as London and Tokyo -- until fallout from the war upended the strategy.<br/>