By Azernews

By Kamila Aliyeva

Kazakhstan’s largest airline, Air Astana, plans to expand its routs network to Uzbekistan.

This was announced by the regional representative of the Kazakh airline Yevgeniy Krutov at a conference dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Kazinform reported.

“In addition to the existing routes Almaty-Tashkent and Astana-Tashkent, we plan to open new routes, such as Samarkand-Almaty, Bukhara-Almaty, Bukhara-Astana next year,” he said.

It is also planned to open a route in the direction of the Ferghana Valley.

“It will be three airports. We will choose one of them.  It may be Namangan, Andijan or Ferghana. We will define the city in terms of infrastructure, airport and service level,” the airline representative specified.

Earlier, the Kazakhstan airline Air Astana announced its plans to increase the number of flights to Uzbekistan starting December 2017 from 6 to 7 flights a week on the route Almaty-Tashkent and from 3 to 4 flights a week on the route Astana-Tashkent.

In turn, Uzbek Airlines decided to increase the number of flights to Kazakhstan from 6 to 7 flights a week on the route Tashkent - Almaty from December 2017, and from 3 to 4 flights a week on the route Tashkent-Astana from 4 March 2018.

Thus, the total number of flights between the countries will be 22 flights per week, so passengers can fly to Tashkent from Almaty twice a day and on a daily basis from Astana.

Kazakhstan has airports in Shimkent, Atbasar, Karaganda, Kyzyl-Orda, Balkhash, Burundai, Zaisan, Petropavlovsk, Semipalatinsk, Ust-kamenogorsk, Uralsk, Taldy-Kurgan, Kokshetau, Pavlodar, Zhezkazgan, Atyrau, Zhambyl, Zhairem, Ekibastuz, Almaty, Aktau, Kostanay, Aktyubinsk, Arkalyk, and Astana cities.

Kazakhstan's existing airlines are Air Astana, Air Company MEGA, Avia Jaynar, Bek Air, Berkut Air, Euro-Asia Air, Excellent Glide, Irtysh-Air, SCAT, Semeyavia, Zhetysu, and Zhezkazgan Air.