An all-white Boeing 727-200 freighter used to be welcomed by water cannons in Turkistan airport in south Kazakhstan on the sunny morning of Twenty third July, changing into the significant plane of the variety for the local airline begin-up Alpha Sky and a a in point of fact mighty addition for cargo skill for this Central Asian nation.
Alpha Sky launched operations in 2023 with two Boeing 737-400 freighters which flew mostly outdoor the nation. In accordance with the carrier’s CEO Gulzhan Janibekova, the 32-twelve months-used Boeing 757 shall be used to bring up to 60 tonnes of e-commerce deliveries from Hong Kong weekly below an agreement with the local post operator QazPost. The airline hopes to load the return flights from Kazakhstan with export items. It moreover plans to add a Boeing 767 widebody freighter this twelve months.
Any further cargo skill is most likely to be welcomed by local forwarders as visitors in the nation started to develop this twelve months after some decline since the close outcome of 33.7 thousand tonnes in 2021. Within the significant six months of this twelve months, local carriers increased visitors by practically 9 percent, to 12.4 thousand tonnes, government statistics repeat.
However, a variety of the cargo is carried in the trunks of passenger plane, which limits the readily available capacities and destinations, the local forwarders whinge. For international shipments, they’ve to gaze for readily available living on the transit international plane ,which assemble stops in the nation on their flights between China and Europe.
READ: TIACA SUPPORTS THE GROWTH OF KAZAKHSTAN INTO AN AIR CARGO HUB WITH MOU SIGNINGS
Kazakhstan’s government sees the nation’s capability as a transit point between the East and the West, especially when overfly of Russia for Western airways used to be interrupted after the invasion of Ukraine.
The authorities be pleased outlined four airports which is able to alter into regional hubs for each passenger and cargo visitors. The checklist entails Almaty, Shymkent and the capital Astana that are already the nation’s finest cargo gateways, as successfully as Aktobe which is on the north of the nation. They are going to assemble compulsory infrastructure, as successfully as special customs zones. Turkey’s logistics company S Sistem offered on the TIACA Silk Road in the Sky match in Astana in June that it can assemble a 30,000 sq m multimodal cargo terminal at Aktobe Airport.
Meanwhile, in June, non-public traders of Karaganda Airport offered their plans to expose it into one other multimodal hub. The 60 percent of the gateway’s stake used to be offered by Timur Turlov, the head and founding father of Freedom Preserving financial community, in Would possibly. In accordance with local media, the unusual owner plans to inject about US$270 million into the renovation of the runway and terminal and growth of the cargo amenities in the airport.
The Karaganda airport is making ready to launch an affiliated cargo carrier, Altair Airways, which is able to function on routes from Kazakhstan to China. Identical efforts to launch unusual cargo airways are being belief to be by the nation’s Nationwide Welfare Fund Samruk Kazyna and Kazakhstan Railways.
Neighboring Uzbekistan is making an strive to alter into a transit hub en route from China to Europe. The nation’s government liberalized the local air transport market about a years ago. This gave birth to unusual non-public carriers, which now compete with feeble government-owned monopolist Uzbekistan Airways.
READ: AIR ASTANA GREW IN 2022 WITH NEW ROUTES AND AIRCRAFT
The latter operates two Boeing 767-300BSF freighters and plans to frequently convert other plane of the variety from its fleet into cargo variants.
However, a privately-owned My Freighter grew to alter into the nation’s finest cargo carrier by fleet size. The company before all the pieces acted as general air cargo agent for Uzbekistan Airways. It launched independent operations with Boeing 747-200F in 2022 but later migrated to Boeing 767 freighters. The airline increased its fleet to 5 767-300BCFs by leasing two plane of the variety from Air Transport Products and services Group in early July.
After obtaining CCAR129 certification in Would possibly which permits operations to and from mainland China, My Freighter has impartial impartial nowadays launched unusual flights to some Chinese language cities – Ezhou, Shenzhen, and Shijiazhuang.
In June, it offered an interline agreement with Spain’s Air Europa Cargo, which gave Uzbeki carrier get dangle of entry to to destinations in the Americas, alongside side Panama City, Cancun, Dominican Republic, Punta Cana, Columbia, Miami, Serene York, and Sao Paolo.
One other Uzbekistan cargo begin-up, Cruise Khiva, received EASA Third Country Operator approval on July 19. In accordance with its commercial director Farhad Mukhutdinov, the carrier plans to begin flying to Europe in August, alongside side Riga, Liege, Warsaw and Paris. Its single Boeing 767-300F started commercial operations in June.
