Almost every day, an airline announces launching a new route or restarting a suspended one to China. Yesterday, it was the turn of Kazakhstan's national carrier, Air Astana, which said it would resume services from Astana to Beijing in March.

Starting on Saturday, March 18th, Air Astana is restarting flights from Astana's Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport (NQZ) to Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK). The route will be operated with an Airbus A321LR and initially run twice weekly on Wednesdays and Saturdays, although the airline is looking to increase frequencies in the summer.

Photo: Anna Zvereva via Wikimedia Commons

More flights to Beijing are happening

Air Astana is already operating flights to Beijing from Almaty International Airport (ALA) to Beijing Capital. The service runs three times a week, operating on Monday, Thursday and Friday using a mix of Airbus A321neos and Boeing 767-300ERs, although it looks like the A321LRs will be the aircraft of choice in the future. From March 2nd, Air Astana is adding a fourth flight, with plans to go to daily service during summer.

Between 2002 and 2020, Air Astana carried more than 1.1 million passengers across this route before it was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Flights to Beijing resumed in November 2022, and now this second service is about to add more capacity between Kazakhstan and China. Air Astana vice president for marketing and sales, Adel Dauletbek, said:

"As we begin to navigate the summer season, the airline is gradually increasing its capacity in China to meet the growing demand of the country with the largest economy and population.

"Our passengers have the opportunity to travel on comfortable Airbus A321LR and A321neo aircraft. We are confident that these flights will be in demand by passengers who are heading to China for business, tourism and other purposes."

Photo: Air Astana

Fleet expansion is paying off for Air Astana

Air Astana is part-way through a fleet expansion program, receiving its tenth Airbus A321LR in December, one of three delivered in 2022. Based on data from ch-aviation.com, it currently has a fleet of 42 aircraft, a mix of Airbus, Boeing and Embraer types. From Airbus, the data shows it has nine A320s, two A321s, nine A320neos, four A321neos and ten A321LRs.

Photo: Embraer

The carrier also has three Boeing 767-300ERs and five Embraer E190-E2 regional jets. The fleet is expected to grow by six A320-family aircraft in 2023, with three Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners due to arrive from 2025 that are being leased from Air Lease Corporation.

Last year marked Air Astana's 20th Anniversary, and from humble beginnings, the airline now has a network spanning 42 routes, 27 international and 15 domestic. Its low-cost carrier Fly Arystan uses a fleet of 13 Airbus A320 and A320neo aircraft on 34 routes, which includes 26 domestic and eight international destinations.

Since its launch in 2002, Air Astana has carried more than 60 million passengers and more than 280,000 tonnes of cargo and mail. In December, the airline said it would transport more than seven million passengers in 2022, which is 12% higher than it did in 2021. In the same announcement, Air Astana advised it had made a net profit of $65 million for the first ten months of 2022, an impressive 84% gain over profit in the same period in 2021.

Have you flown on one of Air Astana's A321LRs? Tell us about it in the comment section.