Aviation development in Kazakhstan: renewal of aircraft fleet and flight safety

In six months, Kazakhstan will start producing Russian ‘Baikal’ aircraft for domestic aviation. So far, aircraft are planned to be only assembled under the Kazakh Aviation Industry, but by 2024, the country will begin the design and its own production of these airliners. This was announced by Director General of the Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan Peter Griffiths. Overall, over the next three years, the country intends to actively expand its national aircraft fleet, he noted.

 “Over the next three years we have plans for 45 aircraft. So we have 51 aircraft operating scheduled commercial services. And that’s expected to rise for about 10 percent per year,” said Peter Griffiths, Director General, Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan.

With the expansion of the aircraft fleet, the requirements for flight safety are also growing. In this regard, Kazakhstan exceeded the world average of compliance with ICAO international standards by 15 percent, reaching this summer, according to preliminary results of the audit, 84 percent indicator.

“Since the beginning of 2021, about 140 inspections have been carried out by the Aviation Administration inspectors regarding the airworthiness of aircraft. According to the results of these inspections, 1,500 issues were identified that were eliminated by aircraft operators. In 2021, flights resumed and, accordingly, there were more requests from airlines. Since the beginning of 2021, about 122 certificates of aircraft airworthiness were issued,” said Nurbek Bekmukhambetov, Deputy Director General, Aviation Administration of Kazakhstan.

High flight safety in Kazakhstan is confirmed by regular independent international inspections. Thus, this summer, by the decision of the European Commission, our country was not included in the "Black List of Airlines", which are prohibited from flying to the EU countries, proving a strong impetus to the development in this industry.

Translation by Galiya Khassenkhanova and Assem Zhanmukanova