Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Kazakhstan will establish another national airline to carry out domestic flights, Kazakh President said on February 26.

Nursultan Nazarbayev announced this news at a meeting with Head of Canadian Bombardier Company Pierre Baudouin.

"We are interested in welcoming a well-known company such as Bombardier to the Kazakh market. Therefore, we are planning to establish another national airline 'Air Kazakhstan' that will carry out domestic flight," the president said.

Nazarbayev also noted that the Air Astana airline has already been established in Kazakhstan jointly with BAE Systems.

"Such experience can also be used in establishing a new company. In addition to cooperating in the aviation sphere, we are also interested in projects in the other sectors of the transport industry. Cooperation on training national pilots and specialists for maintenance centers in the country is also of special importance," he stressed.

Nazarbayev mentioned the necessity of opening the company's representative office in Kazakhstan for closer cooperation and bringing joint activities to the regional level.

Baudouin, in turn, emphasized the importance of developing further cooperation in various spheres of the transport industry.

"We are ready to work together to improve the quality of transport services and the transport sector of Kazakhstan as a whole. I want to assure you that the supply of aircraft equipment is only a small part of our joint work. We also plan to introduce our technologies and apply all our experiences. We will also teach Kazakh pilots, build service centers for aircraft maintenance, and thus have long-term cooperation with Kazakhstan," Baudouin said.

The new airline will start operating in 2015.

Kazakhstan's existing airlines are Air Astana, Air Company MEGA, Avia Jaynar, Bek Air, Berkut Air, Euro-Asia Air, Excellent Glide, Irtysh-Air, SCAT, Semeyavia, Zhetysu, and Zhezkazgan Air.

Bombardier is a Canadian multinational aerospace and transportation company. Headquartered in Montréal, the company is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BBD) and listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability World and North America Indices.