Today under the chairmanship of the Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan Beibut Atambulov was held a meeting on the development of civil aviation of Kazakhstan. At the meeting was considered the progress of the the President’s instructions execution, the results of the industry for the last year and plans for 2020.

The meeting was addressed by Beibut Atamkulov - Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Talgat Lastaev - Chairman of the Committee of Civil Aviation, Peter Griffiths - Director General of JSC "Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan", Azat Bekturov, Director General of RSE "KazAeroNavigation", Peter Foster - President of JSC "Air Astana", Vladimir Denisov President of JSC “Scat”, Gabit Tazhimuratov - Director General of Nur-Sultan airport, and Bolat Yerzhanov - President of Almaty Airport. The dynamics of key indicators in civil aviation demonstrate a stable growth.

More than 8.6 million passengers were carried in 2019, which is 9% more than in 2018 (7.9 million). The number of passengers served in Kazakhstan's airports was 17.7 million people, which is 12% more than in 2018 (15.8 million people). Over the past 7 years, the transit passenger flow has increased 45 times. At the end of last year, this figure rose to 1 million transit passengers. The number of transit air flights increased by 4%". This year, Kazakhstan airlines purchased 12 aircraft for the purpose of fleet renewal and expansion: Air Astana JSC - 2 Embraer 190 E2 and 1 Airbus A321, QAZAQ AIR JSC - 2 Bombardier Q400, SCAT JSC - 1 Boeing 737-3K2, Zhetysu JSC - 2 aircraft and Zhezkazgan Air JSC - 2 L-410 small aircraft. There are 60 airlines operating in the country. 9 Kazakh airlines can fly to European Union countries. Currently, 7 Kazakhstani airlines operate 52 routes in the domestic market. Today Kazakhstan has air communication with 26 foreign countries on 99 international routes (it is 430 flights a week by 26 foreign and 3 Kazakhstan airlines). Since the beginning of 2019, Kazakhstan and foreign airlines have opened 12 international flights.

Within the "open sky" regime, implemented from November 1, 2019 on behalf of the President it is planned to open 14 new international air routes (Qatar Airways: Doha - Nur-Sultan and Doha - Almaty, LOT: Almaty - Warsaw, Salam Air: Almaty - Muscat; Belavia: Aktau - Minsk, Jazeera Airways: from Kuwait to Kazakhstan, Air Asia X.): Kuala Lumpur - Almaty - London; Israir: Tel Aviv - Almaty, Air Astana: Almaty - Paris and Almaty - Mumbai; SCAT: Shymkent - Jeddah, Shymkent - Medina, Nur-Sultan - Delhi), and the number of flights on 2 routes Warsaw - Nur-Sultan (LOT) and Minsk - Almaty (Belavia) will increase to 7 times a week.

In 2020, Air Astana plans to open a new flight on the Almaty - Paris route and is considering opening the Almaty - Mumbai route.

As one of the main measures to reduce air ticket prices and increase competition between air carriers, the first domestic low-cost carrier "Fly Arystan" was launched on May 1, 2019. According to the results of 2019, over 870 thousand tickets were sold, with about 47% below 10 thousand tenge. Modernization of air transport infrastructure is almost completed in Kazakhstan - 16 runways and 13 terminals of Kazakhstan's airports have been reconstructed. In October 2019, the reconstruction of the runway at Kostanay airport was completed. By 2020, the construction of an international airport in Turkestan and a passenger terminal at Shymkent Airport is planned to be completed.

As part of the state program to stimulate domestic tourism this year it is planned to begin reconstruction of the runway of the airports Usharal and Urjar.