Boarding.no : Air Astana teams up with Aviareps

AVIAREPS and Air Astana have signed an agreement to cooperate in the Austrian market. Under the terms of the agreement, AVIAREPS – the world’s leading airline and tourism representation company – will handle all future sales, marketing and reservation activities for the Kazakhstan-based carrier.

Air Astana teams up with AVIAREPS to serve the Austrian market (photo: Oddgeir Tørresdal)

With this new agreement, the two companies will be building on the many years they have already spent working together in Europe: for the past six years, AVIAREPS has been representing Air Astana in the German market, and nearly three years ago, the airline – which was founded in 2001 – also assigned representation rights in Italy to the company’s international specialists in airline representation and tourism management.

Air Astana currently operates six flights a week from Frankfurt am Main via Astana to Almaty. Between 23 May and 5 September, the national carrier of Kazakhstan will also be providing a seasonal link from Hanover via Kostanai to the Kazakh capital of Astana. Passengers residing in Austria will be able to take advantage of feeder flights operated by Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa in order to get from Vienna to Frankfurt am Main. In addition, Air Astana will be operating flights between Vienna and Astana under a code-sharing agreement with Austrian Airlines.

Thanks to the company’s “Nomad Club” reward programme, frequent flyers with Air Astana can collect and redeem points on all national and international flights. Depending on the category of their membership – Blue, Silver or Gold – additional benefits are on offer, such as free use of the business lounge at all airports flown to by Air Astana, as well as checking in at the business class desk.

Air Astana is also one of the over 200 cooperation partners that participate in the “Miles & More” frequent-flyer programme. Travellers can also accumulate bonus and status miles on flights to Astana, Almaty or Kostanai, gaining themselves concessions on flights or attractive material rewards.

Susith Hettihewa, Air Astana’s Regional General Manager for European Union countries, says that the contract extension signals the continuation of a successful partnership: “Awarding representation rights to our experienced partner enables us to guarantee comprehensive, high-quality service to our customers in German-speaking countries. We are confident that AVIAREPS will continue to effectively communicate to people our wide range of services and destinations.”

Oliver Kuechler, COO Aviation of AVIAREPS, has also expressed his delight at the new cooperation agreement: “Kazakhstan offers particularly attractive opportunities for business development, making it especially interesting to large numbers of investors. In the task that lies ahead of us in Austria, we will be drawing not only on our own experience, gained through our marketing activities in Germany, we will also be able to benefit from the individual learnings of our expert local employees.”