Kazakhstan’s flag carrier, Air Astana, has completed the first heavy maintenance for its Airbus A320neo aircraft at its Almaty base.
Kazakhstan’s flag carrier, Air Astana, has completed the first heavy maintenance for its Airbus A320neo aircraft at its Almaty base.
The narrowbody, registered P4-KBH, finished its C-check in 10 days, under guidance from Russian maintenance provider S7 Technics. The team carried out over 170 safety checks and performed minor cabin restoration works.
Air Astana and S7 Technics inked a contract in March, which will see the latter perform C-checks for the carrier’s A320-family jets and Boeing 767s. In the lead-up to the A320neo C-check, Air Astana engineers underwent training at S7 Technics’ base in Moscow.
In October, Air Astana received European certification to perform C-checks on A320-family aircraft.
Air Astana vice president for maintenance and engineering Keith Wardle says the airline sees the possibility of carrying out maintenance for third-party customers in the coming years.
Says Wardle: “Our primary goal is to minimise airline costs by independently performing heavy aircraft maintenance. With the expansion of our experience and capability, we also see the possibility of carrying out maintenance for external customers. This in turn will increase revenue and offset part of the cost of performing our own C-checks.”
Air Astana will also be working towards performing its own C-checks at its second hub at the capital city of Nur-Sultan next year.
