Kazakhstan’s Air Astana group has reported a profit after tax for 2022 of US$78.4 million, on revenues of US$1.03 billion, generated by 7.35 million passengers. The figures are respectively 115%, 36% and 11% higher than in 2021, the highest in the airline’s 20-year history on all three metrics.
Commenting on the results, Peter Foster, President and CEO stated that “the group significantly exceeded expectations despite political unrest in Kazakhstan in January and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. Revenue loss caused by the closure of routes to, from and over Russia was more than compensated for by increased capacity deployment to Europe, Asia, India, and the Caucasus.”
Commenting on the performance of FlyArystan, the group’s 4-year-old low-cost carrier, Foster stated that “FlyArystan has grown by 366% since its inaugural year of 2019. It has a great future, as this region probably has the fastest growing low cost air travel market in the world today.”
Looking forward, Foster pointed out that whilst 2023 is expected to continue to deliver robust passenger growth, “headwinds persist in the form of continued airport and service provider resource and supply chain limitations, technical reliability issues with PW1100G engines, and general inflationary pressure on all aviation-related resources.”
