Air Astana, Kazakhstan’s award-winning flag carrier, has launched a new direct air services from Almaty to Tel Aviv. The new flight is scheduled to operate twice weekly on Thursdays and Sundays using Airbus A321LR aircraft. The outbound service from Almaty has a flight time of 6 hours 45 minutes, with the return flight from Tel Aviv taking 5 hours and 50 minutes. The cost of a round-trip Economy ticket starts from US$603 and Business Class ticket starts from US$1438. Israeli citizens can stay in Kazakhstan visa-free for up to 30 days.
Air Astana commenced operations in May 2002 as a joint venture between Kazakhstan’s national wealth fund, Samruk Kazyna, and BAE Systems, with respective shares of 51% and 49%. The airline is a full-service international and domestic carrier, with its low-cost division, FlyArystan, rapidly growing in regional and domestic markets since being launched in 2019. The Air Astana Group now operates a fleet of 46 aircraft, comprising Airbus A320/A321 family aircraft, Boeing 767 and Embraer E2. Air Astana has been awarded a prestigious 4-Star rating by Skytrax for 11 years in a row and also received multiple TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award and APEX awards.