Air Astana completes first C-check on an Airbus A320neo at Almaty Airport base

Friday 6th December 2019

Air Astana completed its first independent C-check at its base at Almaty Airport, Kazakhstan in November 2019.  Its Airbus A320neo aircraft, registration P4-KBH, delivered three years ago, was selected for this C-check. Air Astana received certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in October to perform this advanced level of maintenance. The certificate allows Air Astana to perform heavy maintenance (C-check) on Airbus A319/A320/A321 aircraft.

The C-check was performed in 10 days under the guidance of S7 Technics specialists, with Air Astana engineers and support teams successfully carrying out over 170 safety checks, as well as minor cabin restoration. In preparation for this significant maintenance work over the past 11 months, Air Astana engineers received training at S7 Technics’ base in Moscow.

Last year Air Astana and S7 Technics signed a memorandum of understanding to establish C-check maintenance at Air Astana’s bases in Almaty and Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana). Under the agreement, S7 Technics provides consulting services as well as training of Air Astana specialists to expand their repair capabilities. The partnership involves the sharing and exchange of tools and equipment between the Air Astana maintenance base and S7 Technics’ bases.

Air Astana highlights third party capability

“Our primary goal is to minimise airline costs by independently performing heavy aircraft maintenance. With the expansion of our experience and capability, we also see the possibility of carrying out maintenance for external customers. This in turn will increase revenue and offset part of the cost of performing our own C-checks. We expect this to happen in the coming years,” said Keith Wardle, Vice President, Maintenance and Engineering, Air Astana.

“In the history of S7 Technics, this is the first such project. But there are examples in the aviation industry when a provider helps a customer develop their own competencies. For an airline of the scale of Air Astana, the development of its own competencies in the field of basic maintenance is not a whim, but a logical step to reduce costs.” - commented Igor Panshin, Deputy General Director for Marketing and Sales, S7 Technics.

Air Astana will significantly increase its maintenance capability at its Nur-Sultan base ready for the first C-check there in 2020.

About Air Astana

Air Astana started regular flights 15 May 2002 and now operates on a network of 60 international and domestic routes from hubs in Almaty and Nur-Sultan The fleet comprises 38 Boeing 767-300ER, Boeing 757-200, Airbus A320/A321 (CEO/NEO/LR) and Embraer E190/E2 aircraft. Air Astana became the first carrier from the CIS and Eastern Europe to be awarded a 4-star rating and the Best Airline in Central Asia and India by international ratings agency, Skytrax in 2012 and has repeated the achievement every year through until 2019.

Air Astana is a joint venture between the National Welfare Fund of Kazakhstan "Samruk-Kazyna" and BAE Systems with respective shares of 51% and 49%.