Air Astana cancels Semey and Uralsk flights

Air Astana national carrier stopped making flights to Semey and Uralsk starting from December 1, 2012, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing the company’s press-service. According to the airline company, cancellation of the flights is a coercive measure. “At present Uralsk and Semey airports require a complete overhaul of their runway strips for pilots of jet airliners to make safe landings and take-offs,” the carrier’s press-release reads. The runways of these cities got on the blacklist for exposing passengers to danger. The airline company used to make regular flights to Uralsk and Semey using turbo-prop Fokker 50 aircrafts. However, the airline company is abandoning these aircrafts at present. The Fokker 50 aircrafts that are still left in the fleet will be returned to the leasing company in January 2013. Instead of them new Embraer 190 jet airliners will be put in service. “Modernization of the air fleet is one of strategic goals of the company. We have been changing turbo-prop short-haul Fokker 50 aircrafts to Embraer 190 jet airliners step by step for the last 18 months. The new aircrafts will enable our passengers to reach different regions of Kazakhstan, Central Asian, Russian and Caucasus cities in a shorter period of time and in more comfortable conditions,” Peter Foster, Air Astana president, said. Fokker 50 aircrafts performed about 50 thousand flights with a total duration of 90 thousand hours flying the flag of the national carrier since 2004. More than 1.5 million passengers were carried by these aircrafts.