On June 2, 2026, Air Astana launched two new destinations from its base at Astana’s Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport (NQZ): Larnaca, Cyprus (LCA) and Guangzhou (CAN), China.
This will be followed, by the launch of a supplementary nonstop service between Almaty (ALA) and Larnaca on June 4, 2026.
Both Cypriot routes, which are the only direct connections between this Eastern Mediterranean island and Kazakhstan, will run twice weekly during the summer season, through to September 2026.
Both services will be operated by Airbus A321LR aircraft fitted with 166 seats (16 in Business and 150 in Economy Class). Flight time from Astana is five hours and 40 minutes and six hours and five minutes from Almaty.
Air Astana revealed that the inaugural service had a load factor of 83%. On its social media channels, the airline also shared that the President of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, was onboard as a passenger on the first return rotation back to Astana.
On the same day that the Larnaca service was launched, Air Astana also inaugurated its new route between Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport and Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (CAN).
However, Guangzhou is not a new destination for Air Astana since the Kazakh carrier has been operating a five-weekly service from its other base, Almaty.
The new service from the Kazakh capital will operate twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and will also be operated by Airbus A321LR aircraft. The length of this stage is six hours and 45 minutes.
China is a strategic market for Air Astana. Speaking with AeroTime in 2024, former Air Astana CEO, Peter Foster, highlighted the potential of the Chinese market for the airline and how he expected it to become a major vector of growth for the airline in years to come.
As of June 2026, Air Astana serves multiple cities in China. In addition to Guangzhou, it also flies from Almaty to Urumqi (URC), Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG), Yining (YIN), and Sanya (SYX), on the island of Hainan, which is a popular tourist destination for Kazakh people, and from Astana to Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) and Urumqi.
