Vietnam’s Sovico Group, owner of Kazakh airline Qazaq Air, soon to be rebranded as VietJet Kazakhstan, has been offered the opportunity to manage one of the airports in Kazakhstan’s Kyzylorda region.
This week, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy, Serik Zhumangarin, confirmed Sovico’s interest in acquiring or taking over the management of an airport in the country, though he did not specify which facility was under consideration.
On Thursday, during a session of the Senate (the upper house of Kazakhstan’s parliament), Deputy Foreign Minister Alibek Bakaev clarified that the proposal concerned an airport in the Kyzylorda region. “The point is that the Vietnamese side would manage the airport temporarily to improve its operations. This is not about a buyout, we do not sell strategic assets. We are attracting advanced technologies and companies to enhance the functioning and services of our airports from both technological and administrative perspectives,” Bakaev told reporters.
The Kyzylorda region, located in southern Kazakhstan, hosts five airports: in the regional capital Kyzylorda, the district center of Aralsk, the village of Zhosaly, and two airports serving the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Krayniy and Yubileiny. The largest among them is Korkyt Ata International Airport, located in Kyzylorda city. Its 2,700-meter-long, 45-meter-wide asphalt runway, which can accommodate all categories of helicopters and first-class aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of 75 tons or more, includes the Tu-204, Boeing 757 and 747, and Airbus A320, as well as lighter aircraft.
In November 2023, a new passenger terminal was inaugurated at Korkyt Ata, boosting the airport’s annual capacity from 300,000 to 2 million passengers.
Korkyt Ata International Airport is currently managed by Airport Management Group and owned by the regional akimat (governor’s office).
As previously reported by The Times of Central Asia, last autumn, Sovico Group announced plans to modernize and develop airport infrastructure in both the Kyzylorda and Turkestan regions of Kazakhstan.
