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Following suit of the national airline Air Astana, SCAT airlines has announced a raise of ticket prices for all international flights, Tengrinews reports.
For the Kazakh airline companies with expenses in the US dollars, the raise in prices for international flights comes as a measure to compensate for the free floating tenge policy introduced by the government of Kazakhstan last week.
“The decision of the airline company is connected with the specifics of the aviation industry. Most of the expenses for maintenance of our airplanes, personnel training and others costs are paid in US dollars,” SCAT said.
SCAT is increasing the price for international flight tickets by 20%. Whereas days earlier Air Astana announced a 25% increase citing similar reasons.
The measure is in no way directed at increasing the company's income, and it cannot fully compensate the “costs related to the instable tenge to dollar rate”, SCAT said after the Kazakh tenge lost 36% of its value against the US dollar in a matter of days after the government floated it.
“The increase of prices (by 20%) covers some of the expenses associated with serving international flights,” the company said.
Since SCAT has not completely compensated all its new expenses associated with international fights, a increase in ticket prices can possibly happen again.
Earlier, SCAT reported plans to lease 20 Sukhoi airplanes. Russian specialists doubted the viability of the $500 million worth contract with Sukhoi aircraft manufacturer considering the situation in the airline market in Kazakhstan. With the depreciation of the Kazakh national currency the deal becomes even more unlikely.
By Gyuzel Kamalova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina
