Air Astana, Kazakhstan’s principal airline, has produced an unaudited record pre-tax profit of $96.4 million in 2010, up 59 percent over 2009, on sales of $656 million.
Total capacity increased by eight percent and the number of passengers carried increased by 13 percent to 2.57 million.
New routes were added to St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg in Russia, Dushanbe in Tajikistan and Tashkent in Uzbekistan.
The airline’s growing intercontinental network saw flights to Frankfurt, Istanbul, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing and Urumchi increase during 2010.
“It is hard to imagine how trading conditions could have been better in 2010,” said Air Astana president Peter Foster, “with costs for much of the year at post-recession levels but with substantially healthier markets from March onwards.
“We don’t expect conditions to be so benign in 2011. However we will continue to expand our Central Asian network with the introduction of the Embraer 190s in April.â€
Air Astana is a joint venture between Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna (51%) and BAE Systems PLC (49%).
