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GUEST ARTICLE
The Story of Air Astana
is Stranger Than Fiction
- Richard Trevithick
©Airbus
n its Wikipedia page, Air Truth can be stranger than fic- What is indisputable is that
Astana used to be thus tion, and Evans swears to this Air Astana was founded with
O described: “Though one day that it did indeed happen as just US$17m of shareholders’
of the most successful start-up the legend asserts. Sadly, the money, its first and last tranche
airlines of recent times, its exis- napkin (Air Astana’s equivalent of invested capital (including
tence represents possibly the of the Holy Grail) seems to have during Covid, which it survived
most unusual and unlikely story been lost, or perhaps buried at without a cent of external
of the industry”. the bottom of one of the boxes finance).
of old files in the former BAE
Doubtless sanitized by chief’s Lytham St Annes family The airline publicly listed earlier
over-zealous PR people in home. this year on the Astana, Almaty
light of its recent listing on the and London Stock Exchanges
London Stock Exchange, the for a market capitalization at
now airbrushed description is in listing of US$847m, having
fact spot on. paid aggregate dividends over
the years of approximately
How did mammoth UK defence US$140m. By any measure that
contractor BAE Systems come is some return in an industry
to be a founding shareholder known for thin margins and high
of an airline in Kazakhstan, a volatility.
country virtually unknown in
aviation circles in 2002? Is there To summarize, Air Astana has
any truth to the legend that the produced stellar returns for its
deal was inked on a hotel table shareholders, built from scratch
napkin in the dead of night a the largest and most admired
year earlier by then-President airline in Eurasia, delivered a
Nazarbayev and then-BAE world class airline brand for its
Systems Chairman Sir Richard host country Kazakhstan, and
(Dick) Evans? Peter Foster, CEO, Air Astana Group is the driving force of aviation
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