After carrying out its first C Check on an Airbus A321 last year, Air Astana plans to carry out eight in-house C checks on its aircraft fleet in 2022 at Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan base.

The airline carries out all line and base maintenance in-house except for some C check base maintenance. Three of those C checks will be outsourced to third part providers this year.

More maintenance services are likely to be insourced over the next year, says Keith Wardle, Air Astana's vice president engineering and maintenance. “Currently we have capability to perform up to level one C checks on the Airbus A320 family of aircraft, but we hope to extend this to level 2C later this year," he says. "After that we will grow our capability and fleet coverage according to experience and need.”

Air Astana operates a fleet currently comprised of 38 aircraft, including Airbus A320 family types, Boeing 767s and Embraer E190s. It still has plans to take delivery of three 787-8 aircraft, although plans have been postponed until 2025.

Air Astana opened its in-house maintenance center in Nur-Sultan, formerly known as Astana, at the end of 2017 as part of efforts to grow its heavy maintenance check capabilities for both in-house fleet work and third-party customers, which number more than 20 airlines. It also conducts maintenance operations in Almaty and Atyrau.

After enduring the pandemic, the Kazakhstani flag carrier returned to profitability in 2021 by posting a $36.1 million after-tax for the full year. 

It is not yet known how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will impact Air Astana’s MRO business. The airline says in accordance with worldwide sanctions following the outbreak of conflict, its maintenance division ceased all contracts with Russian customers and suppliers. These included spare parts and services from Russia, as well as terminating all contracts for supporting Russian aircraft.