Kazakhstan's Air Astana flies above pandemic turbulence

The global aviation sector is struggling to recover from a pandemic-driven slump, but Kazakhstan's flagship carrier Air Astana is bucking the trend with a swing back to profit and record passenger numbers, its CEO said. The little-known airline, which is eyeing a listing later this year, is banking on even more growth as the COVID-19 slump recedes and demand for leisure travel soars. But Russia's invasion of Ukraine could make for a rough ride. Air Astana booked a $36.2m net profit last year, as major carriers including China's three-biggest airlines suffered billion-dollar losses while Indonesian airline Garuda limps through a debt restructuring. That marked a strong rebound from Astana's $94m loss in 2020 and was also up from a $30.3m profit a year earlier, according to the airline's chief, Peter Foster. Revenue for 2021 jumped 92% on-year to $756m, Foster added. "[It] was a good result. Far better than expected," he said. The upswing came as the Almaty-based company's traffic hit a record last year with some 3.5m passengers flying on Air Astana and another 3.1m on low-cost subsidiary FlyArystan, a nearly 30% increase on a combined 5.1m passengers in 2019 before the pandemic sent traffic plummeting. The rise tracked a broader jump in the Central Asian nation's aviation sector, which logged 7.6m domestic passengers last year, bouncing back from 4.6m in 2020 and 5.35m in 2019, according to Kazakhstan's national statistics bureau, a rise partly driven by an emerging middle class. "We think that Kazakhstan was the fastest growing domestic aviation market in the world last year," Foster said. Foster, a former Cathay Pacific executive and CEO of Royal Brunei Airlines, pointed to four drivers of Air Astana's standout performance -- strong domestic demand, high yields on regional routes, adopting more point-to-point routes and fleet upgrades.<br/>