Air Astana Orders 15 Boeing 787s: A Major Leap for Kazakhstan’s Long-Haul Growth

Air Astana despite not being the largest of airlines has had many positive reviews and acclamations from aviation enthusiasts and experts. The airline is the flag carrier of Kazakhstan and, along with its low cost subsidiary FlyArystan is the fastest way to move around the country’s territory. However, the carrier’s bottleneck to growth has long been its long haul fleet and operations. That is set to change with this new, and largest in Air Astana’s history, wide body aircraft order.

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Air Astana Places Its Largest Aircraft Order Ever

Air Astana revealed its agreement with Boeing to purchase 15 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft (with 3 more joining the fleet from lessors). That is a huge deal for an airline the size of Air Astana. Even more so if you consider that the airline currently only operates 3 wide body planes (3 Boeing 767-300ER).

The addition of 18 new generation long haul capable aircraft will increase the fleet size 6 to 7 fold depending on the retirement of the current wide body aircraft fleet.

The Boeing 787-9 is the mid-sized version, and the most popular, of the Dreamliner family. It will soon also be the backbone to all of Air Astana’s long haul and high capacity operations.

Additionally, this order confirms Air Astana’s strong tie and trust in Boeing for its wide body fleet. While it prefers Airbus metal for narrow body planes it has confirmed, by ordering 15 (+3 leased) Boeing 787-9, with this order that Boeing is its go to supplier for larger planes.

Why the Boeing 787 Is a Game-Changer for Air Astana

The Boeing 787-9 will be a real game-changer for Air Astana. The airline currently operates a handful of longer flights, 3 to Europe (London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam) and 3 to Asia (Beijing, Seoul Incheon, Guangzhou). None of them exceeding the 6 hour mark though.

These 15 Boeing 787-9 will, however, enable the airline to finally set its eyes on a proper long haul expansion. Air Astana could, with these planes in its fleet finally try launching flights to the US and definitely up its operations and frequencies in Europe which remains the market with biggest untapped growth potential.

Air Astana could aim to become a one stop option to many destinations in Asia for passengers departing Europe and viceversa. Also, Kazakhstan has become massively popular among tourists in Europe and North America for its rich culture and natural beauty, attracting larger crowds year after year.

Replacing the Ageing Boeing 767 Fleet

The current Air Astana wide body fleet is meager. It is made up of only 3 Boeing 767-300ER which are getting old. Two of these 767s are 12 years old and the other 11. They will be much older by the time the new 787s land in Kazakhstan, but more on that in the next segment.

These planes are fitted with a 2 class configuration seating up to 223 passengers on a full cabin. The new Boeing 787-9s will on the other hand seat up to 303 passengers, ensuring a significant up-gauging for the carrier.

Also that 303 passenger figure tells us that the airline is thinking of fitting the plane with a 3-class configuration or a 2 class with a reasonably sized business class cabin.

Delivery Timeline of Air Astana’s New Boeing 787s

Air Astana has placed this order now but it will have to wait a significant period of time before getting its hands on the first of the Boeing 787-9s.

The first delivery is scheduled 7 years down the line. Yes you read that right, the first Air Astana Boeing 787-9 delivery is expected for 2032. Things will move rather rapidly after the first aircraft delivery, with all 18 planes expected to be in Air Astana’s fleet by 2035.

The price tag for those 18 planes? Full price would be 7 billion Dollars USD, however, we all know airlines get significant discounts over the full price especially if ordering a bulk as Air Astana has done.