FEB. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hungarian low-cost airline company Wizz Air said it will open an operational base at Kutaisi airport in central Georgia. This will be Wizz Air’s first base in the South Caucasus. Wizz Air intends to use Kutaisi as its hub for new regional destinations.
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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
FEB. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s flagship airline, Air Astana signed several codeshare agreements with international carriers to boost its image and offer new products to customers. From March 11, Air France/KLM customers will be able to book an Air Astana-operated flight from Astana to Paris. In a separate deal, Hong Kong Airlines also signed a codeshare agreement with Air Astana on its Hong Kong – Almaty flights. Air Astana now holds eight international codeshare agreements.
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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
JAN. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Qatar Airways, the country’s flagship airline, said it would expand its routes in the South Caucasus in Q1 and Q2 of 2016. The company announced the opening of a new Doha-Yerevan route from May 2016. Qatar Airways will fly four times a week to Armenia’s capital. The company also plans to expand from seven to eleven the weekly flights to Baku, from the end of March.
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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)
JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – There is much excitement in our region over the emergence of Iran after over a decade of US-imposed sanctions.
New flight connections, new pipelines, new transmission lines and more is what a sanctions-free Iran could bring to the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
Iran has struck a deal with Air Astana to open the Almaty-Tehran air route. It has also revived talks with Turkmenistan about gas fields and pipelines around the Caspian.
Potentially, a new network to the east of the Caspian Sea could facilitate the European Union’s plans to import gas from the region. Azerbaijan may well be interested in such deals as well. In addition, Iran could become an important supplier of gas to both Armenia and Georgia.
On the flip side, Iran’s accession to the global oil market will undoubtedly drive the price of oil further down, it has huge oil reserves and production capacity, increasing the pressure on the budgets of oil-exporting economies in the region.
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Editorial from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)
JAN. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian airline company Nordavia said it will open a regular flight from St. Petersburg to Yerevan. Nordavia previously only operated regular domestic flights in western Russia. According to the press statement, Nordavia will fly between St. Petersburg and Armenia’s capital three times a week.
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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)
ALMATY, JAN. 18 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s national airline Air Astana reported a 21% drop in revenues in 2015, a sign that the economic downturn is hurting state- owned companies.
Air Astana was not explicit about exactly what triggered the sharp drop in revenue. In a press release, Air Astana CEO Peter Foster said: “A sharp fall in revenue was more than compensated for by significant cost savings, including, though not limited to, jet fuel savings.”
Revenue in 2015 dropped to $738m. Net profit rose to $47.4m from $19.5m.
An Air Astana spokesperson told The Bulletin that more explanation on why revenues had fallen so sharply would be given in a full year report to be published over the next few weeks.
The suspicion is that the depreciation of the tenge has hit Air Astana hard. Its income is mainly in tenge and its costs in US dollars or euros. The tenge has lost 50% of its value over the past five months.
Air Astana is supposed to lease 7 aircraft from Netherlands-based AerCap, a deal priced in euros. The fall in the tenge makes the deal expensive.
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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)
JAN. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anuar Saidenov, former Kazakh Central Bank chief and ex-board member at BTA Bank and Bank RBK, was appointed chairman of the company managing Almaty airport. Since 2011, Netherlands based Venus Airport Investments has owned Almaty International Airport.
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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Apogee, a Dubai-based international airport service company, opened an office in the Yuzhny Airport in Tashkent. Apogee focuses on former-Soviet countries, providing various support functions for airports.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Somon Air, a private airline company in Tajikistan, signed a contract with British Commsoft to use its OASES IT system for engineering and maintenance. Somon Air operates flights connecting Tajikistan with Russia, Kazakhstan, Germany, Turkey, China and the UAE.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Austrian Airlines, Austria’s flag carrier and full-owned subsidiary of German Lufthansa, will stop flying to Azerbaijan from January 2016 because of low demand. With the termination of the Austrian Airlines route, there will be no more direct flights from Austria to Azerbaijan. Austrian Airlines told the Trend news agency it may consider resuming the air link in the future.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)