Incident in Kazakhstan
 

Just wondering if anyone has heard anything about an Air Astana B737 running off the runway? It was either at Atyrau or Aktau, if it occurred. One of my colleagues heard a rumour, but I've not been able to find anything out.

Am assuming, if it happened, that it wasn't too serious, but would appreciate any info, if there is any.

Hopefully all concerned are ok. Haven't heard anything other than on here so fingers crossed.

Isn't Air Astana Kazakhstan's "favourite" at the moment? Am I right in saying that foreign charters have been restricted since their formation? (incl AEU/EAF)

Could prove interesting to see what happens if this particular aircraft needs to be repaired and theres a shortage of capacity.

Dont get me wrong though, first and foremost thoughts are hoping that everything ok.

Air Kazakhstan was officially wound up by the govt. on 1st February

I understand that Air Astana are already incurring serious delays under operational pressures of taking over so many new key routes ex Almaty since December 03.

B737-700NG. No damage, no injuries just a slow departure off the end on to stopway. Aircraft back in service. Looks like the crew did a good job considering the runway end was no better than a skating rink!:D

hirsute

As I thought, it would be something relatively minor. Which airport was it at?


Air Kazakhstan will operate it's final flight at the end of this month I believe. Pavlodar-Kostanai-Hanover, then it'll all be over.

Air Astana will have much work to aquire new aircraft to pick up the key routes. Personally, I don't care so long as they have Almaty-Kostanai running by August so I can visit my in-laws!!

ael401

Incident was at Aktobe (Aktubinsk)

hirsute

Thanks for the info.

eal401

I'm in Kazakhstan at the moment, and to say it's chaotic with the demise of Air Kazakhstan is an small understatement. I have to fly to Atyrau this week from Oral and getting a flight is not easy - the few flights we now have are very full.

Where we could once fly from Oral to Baku, Munich, Moscow, Astana, Aktau & Aytrau on a fairly regular basis, now everything is cancelled and the planes are parked. I will be very interested to see what Air Astana do, with their 3 B737 & 2 B757, or whether they have plans to operate any regional aircraft to do the thin runs. SCAT are trying to take up some of the slack, but also don't have a lot of capacity with their AN-24's.

To answer No Comment's quiey. From the rumors I know, AEU went to get their permission to fly to Oral but were told their licence was cancelled. The next day Air Astana started to fly from Schiphol. This caused a logistical nightmare as all the people for that flight had to get from London (where they were supposed to fly from with AEU) to Amsterdam. Since then Air Astana's timing has been lousy until the last couple of weeks. They have now changed the schedule so that they fly into Amsterdam early in the morning and the flight leaves back to Oral in evening.

Greetings from Aksai

Oiler

The flights are getting off more or less on time these days but I wish they'd re-pitch their seats. You get a good two-three inches less than that on easyJet for goodness sake. On a five hour flight :suspect:

I heard they had problems on the Dubai - Almaty run recently when they had an engine problem and ended up on the ground for three hours. Glad I wasn't on that one. :eek:

LowNSlow

Agree about the seat pitch, also it would be nice to get the IFE working too.

On another note, according to April's OAG guide, Astraeus are offerring two flights a week ex Atyrau to Gatwick (leaving GUW Tuesday & Wednesday). I thought the UK charter companies had their permissions revoked in favour of Air Astana ?

Anyone have any info ?

Oiler.

Does anyone know, is Air Astana still doing LHR or has this been pulled / changed now?

Next flight ALA-LHR is scheduled for 1420 tomorrow.

Don't know what time the return flight leaves.

You can say what you like about Air Astana but at least their maintenance is JAR-145!