AIR ASTANA ANNOUNCES RECORD PRE-TAX PROFITS

Air Astana, Kazakhstan’s flag carrier, has announced a record pre-tax profit of $96.4 million in 2010, up 59% on 2009, on the back of $656 million in sales. Total capacity increased by 8% and the number of passengers carried increased by 13% to 2.57 million. New routes were added to St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg in Russia, Dushanbe in Tajikistan and Tashkent in Uzbekistan. The airline now operates a large network of routes within Kazakhstan, Central Asia and South East Russia to compliment its growing intercontinental network. Flights to Frankfurt, Istanbul, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing and Urumchi were all increased during