Low-cost airline FlyArystan, a division of Air Astana based in Kazakhstan, has announced operating results for 2019.

The airline carried 700,581 passengers on more than 4,000 operated flights in just eight months. The figures ran from its launch on 1 May until 31 December 2019.

FlyArystan reports that load factors over the operational period from May to December was 94 per cent, with on-time performance of more than 90 percent.

The LCC commenced operations with two A320 aircraft in May 2019 with those aircraft based in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

In October and December last year, two additional A320 aircraft were added, with a new aircraft base in the capital Nur-Sultan (previously called Astana) commencing at that time.

The future for FlyArystan

FlyArystan finished the year with 13 routes to a total of 10 destinations. The airline commenced its first international service in December 2019 from Nur-Sultan to Zhukovsky (Moscow).

Head of FlyArystan Tim Jordan said: “We shall be growing our fleet from four to 10 aircraft in 2020. That will certainly allow us to continue our rapid growth and to bring our low fares and new routes to many more cities across Kazakhstan and the Central Asian region.

“We will also be opening at least two new aircraft bases in both Karaganda and Aktobe in 2020. We look forward to adding more in the future. FlyArystan has had a great start to operations in 2019 thanks to the support that we have received from our partners, our customers and of course the fantastic FlyArystan team.

“We are certainly very encouraged by our early progress and we are looking forward to delivering even more growth in Kazakhstan and the region in 2020 and beyond.”

The airline reported that on average across all the airports it operates the average domestic passenger growth was 38 percent over the May – December period versus the previous year.

FlyArystan also recently started international services beginning last month.