International airport of Astana to be commissioned on 1 April

The international airport of Astana will be commissioned on 1 April, 2005, at the beginning of the summer schedule. Currently the airport has decided to carry out a gradual transfer of the flights from the current;y operating terminal to the new one, top management of "International airport of Astana" CJSC has advised KZ-today in response to a request from the information agency.

The reasons why the airport does not serve passengers so far have been explained by the CJSC management by a necessity "to define narrow spaces in the technological process and to prevent failure situations."

Responding to a question from KZ-today about a readiness of the airport to receive transit planes, the CJSC management has said that "the airport's landing strip will allow to receive all planes without limits on weight and the number of landings after a reinforcement of the paving." "The international airport of Astana can well announce its readiness to receive and serve possible transit flights of any passenger or freight air companies of the world."

Earlier it was reported that the international airlines were transferred from the airport of Almaty to the airport of Astana as from 1 September, 2005, as per decision of the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Currently the direct regular flights are carried out by Lufthansa, KLM, Turkish Airlines, British Airways, China Southern Airlines, Iran Air, Pakistan International, and other companies.

To transfer the international airlines "the marketing service of the airport works on attraction of transit flights through the Astana airport by the airport technical capacities and its favourable geopolitical situation on the continent." In particular, according to the CJSC management currently the negotiations are held with "FEDEX", "Aviastar", "LH Cargo", "DHL", "Sing Air Cargo", and others. So far the Astana airport has been serving only the transit flights of "Polar-Air-cargo".

The new building of the international airport of Astana was solemnly opened by president Nursultan Nazarbayev on 2 February, 2005.

The passenger terminal of the international airport of Astana consists of the basement, two passenger floors, and one VIP floor. The passenger terminal is equipped with telescopic ladders. The airport capacity is 1 thousand passengers on rush hours. The two storey freight terminal has a 600 ton capacity, its daily cargo turnover is 300 tons.