Finnish carrier Finnair is considering operating its flight to Hong Kong through Kazakhstan’s air corridor, a Kazakh aviation official said Monday.
“Finnair has informed us that they are going to operate the flights to Hong Kong through Kazakhstan’s air corridor and may operate up to 12 flights to Hong Kong a week,” Sergei Kulnazarov, director of KazAeroNavigation, told reporters in Astana.
According to Kulnazarov, the existing air corridors to China and Southeast Asia mainly go over the mountains where weather conditions are difficult.
“In the existing air corridor over the Khan Tengri mountain, the safe altitude is 8,600 meters, while the new corridor will offer a lower safe altitude, which will make the flights safer as the planes will be able to descend to the low safe altitude, say, in case of depressurization, without having to use additional oxygen equipment,” Kulnazarov said.
Radilbek Adimolda, chairman of the Civil Aviation Committee of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport and Communications, told reporters the country opened a new air corridor to China and Southeast Asia in early March, with an air navigation station on the Kazakh-Chinese border.
“We are going to offer this air corridor to other foreign airlines too,” Adimolda said.
Kazakhstan may earn up to 550 million tenge (about 3.8 million U.S. dollars) this year after the existing air corridors are redirected to the new air navigation station, he said.
