Air Astana

Is Air Astana safe?

Yes. Kazakhstan's main airline has not had a fatal accident in 24 years of flying, it is IOSA-registeredIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary, and its group fleet of 63 jets averages about seven years. What keeps it at 78 is a mix of history and recent wear: an EU restriction that lasted until 2015, a 2018 maintenance error that nearly crashed an Embraer, and engine troubles that have cost it aircraft every summer since 2023. That puts it above Azerbaijan Airlines (72) and Turkish Airlines (71) and below most Western European airlines.

What happened on the 2018 Embraer flight?

This is the event that defines Air Astana's record. In October 2018 an Embraer 190 went into a heavy check at OGMA, a maintenance company at Alverca near Lisbon. During the work, technicians rerouted and replaced the aileron control cables under Embraer service bulletins and connected them the wrong way round. A flight-control fault message appeared repeatedly in testing; after days of troubleshooting with Air Astana and Embraer, the aircraft was released.

On 11 November it left for Almaty via Minsk as flight KC1388 with three pilots and three technicians on board. Straight after take-off in poor weather the jet began to roll against the pilots' inputs. The crew fought violent oscillations and high g-loads, lost control completely several times, considered ditching in the sea and eventually switched the flight controls to direct mode, which made the aircraft just flyable. Escorted by two Portuguese Air Force F-16s, they landed at Beja on the third approach. One person hurt a leg. The airframe had been overstressed and was written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary.

Portugal's investigators (GPIAAF) blamed the cable installation and the lack of an effective independent inspection at the maintenance company. They also faulted Air Astana: poor supervision of the maintenance organisation, no guidance to crews on accepting aircraft after heavy maintenance, and a crew that missed the reversed ailerons during routine control checks before departure. Embraer's design, which allowed the cables to be crossed, was a factor too.

Nobody died, so it is not a fatal accident. But it was the near-loss of an aircraft from a preventable error, and it is the reason the accident score is 86 rather than the 90s.

Was Air Astana on the EU blacklist?

Partly. Kazakh airlines were on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, and from 2009 Air Astana could fly to Europe only under restrictions. The Commission lifted those restrictions on 10 December 2015, and on 8 December 2016 it cleared every airline certified in Kazakhstan, crediting "years of work and European technical assistance". No Kazakh airline is on the June 2026 list.

Kazakhstan has no FAA rating because no Kazakh airline flies to the US. In July 2023 the country's Civil Aviation Committee said Kazakhstan met 82% of ICAO's safety standards, comparable to the EASA average; that is the government's own figure. Many of Air Astana's aircraft are on the Irish register, which adds a second regulator for airworthiness.

How bad are the Pratt & Whitney engine problems?

Disruptive rather than dangerous, but real. Most of the fleet is A320neo-family jets with Pratt & Whitney GTF engines, which have needed early removals since a 2023 recall over contaminated powder metal. In 2025 the group also had 22 unscheduled engine removals for other design defects, grounding up to 13 aircraft at the summer peak. Air Astana leased spare engines and extra jets and has changed engines 208 times in its own workshops since January 2024. By mid-2026 it reported about 60% fewer groundings than a year earlier and expects none by summer 2027.

The safety side shows in flight: an engine stall at Almaty in September 2023 that Kazakhstan's investigators rated a serious incident, an in-flight shutdown at Aktau in March 2025 and an engine failure that diverted a Frankfurt-bound A321neo to Aktobe in May 2026. All landed safely, as twin-engine jets are designed to.

What other incidents count?

• Frankfurt, April 2016. A 767 turned off the runway too fast and put its left main gear on the grass before steering back.
• Astana, May 2018. An A320 landing in thunderstorm gusts of up to 49 knots left the runway, crossed two taxiways and rejoined the runway, damaging an engine inlet.
• Mumbai, February 2024. An A320neo took a wrong taxiway and crossed a runway hold line while an Air India A319 was starting its take-off roll; the Air India crew rejected the take-off at low speed. India's DGCA opened an investigation.

What about FlyArystan?

FlyArystan, launched in May 2019, is Air Astana's wholly owned low-cost brand, with 28 A320s in June 2026, a mix of older ceos and newer neos (the company's two fleet tables give different splits). It says it follows the same safety standards and regulatory processes as Air Astana, and its aircraft are part of the group figures above. We found no accident and one minor incident (an avionics cooling fault in 2020), so we cover it on this page rather than separately.

How we scored it

The accident record (86) reflects the written-off Embraer and turbulence that injured seven passengers in 2023, with no deaths. The fleet (82) is young but hit by engine groundings, and oversight (72) reflects Kazakhstan's EU history and limited outside ratings, partly offset by IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. Serious incidents (68) and environment (68), with mountain and steppe weather and Gulf routes cut by the war, are the weaker factors. Overall 78.