FlyArystan Airline is in standby mode

Nowadays air travel is an ordinary part of our life. It is no secret that low-cost airlines or low-costers are very popular wherever you go.

Kazakhstan aviation market is developing this service line. In autumn 2018 it was officially announced about establishing FryArystan low-coster, a subsidiary of national air carrier Air Astana.

It was planned to launch the low-coster operation in May 2019 based on the classic model of successful global airlines like Easyjet in Europe, Indigo in India, Cebu Pacific in the Philippines or Air Asia in Southeast Asia.

The FlyArystan website will offer flights on 30 domestic routes with lower tariffs compared to Air Astana or other air carriers. Low cost will be reached due to exclusion of in-flight catering and limiting of checked baggage to 20 kilograms.

So, if you'd like to have meals and soft drinks on board or check in extra baggage, it will cost you some extra fee. This is how all the low-costers work.

But for operating in line with the rules similar to those established for the well-known low-cost carriers, the Kazakhstan air legislation regarding baggage transportation and own tariffs setting must be amended.

Currently, the passenger having baggage and the passenger without the baggage pay the same ticket fee. It is worth mentioning that tariffs excluding baggage fee are currently applied by the airlines operating in Kazakhstan, for instance, Wizz Air to fly Astana-Budapest, Air Arabia to fly Almaty-Sharzha and Fly Dubai to fly Almaty-Dubai.

Another obstacle for developing low-cost air transportation in Kazakhstan is tighter government regulation of air transportation and the inability of setting the tariffs by the airlines. It is obvious that the ticket fee consists of 30 percent of the air-fuel cost, up to 13 percent of flight navigation services, 11 percent of in-flight service, 10 percent of maintenance, 8.5 percent of leasing fee, personnel costs and much more.

Extra paid services are of acute importance for the low-cost carrier well-being, in particular, the airline's right to set a baggage rate, as the ticket cost reduction by the low-coster is achieved due to:

• High loading of the aircraft

• Buying tickets online

• No service fees to tourist agencies

• Use of secondary airports

• No connecting flights

• Economy class seats only

• Minimum crew

• Short ground turn-around time

• Excluding all the extra services (baggage, meals on board or seat selection etc.) from the base rate.

For Almaty -- Astana, one of the most popular routes, the average low-coster ticket will cost 14 -16 thousand tenge. In contrast, the Tulpar-Talgo train ticket costs 13.5 -19 thousand tenge. So, the train passengers will probably use aircraft more often than trains. All the above-mentioned conditions will allow the low-cost carrier to offer lower tariffs and to get more passengers to fly low-coster both for business and tourism.