Up To 9h 35m: Air Astana’s Very Long Nonstop Airbus A321LR Flights To London Heathrow Explored

Your eyes did not deceive you. It is true: Air Astana’s service from Almaty to London Heathrow is indeed timed up to 9h 35m. Thanks to additional fuel tanks on its Airbus A321LRs, which meant freight capacity was reduced, flights operate nonstop. It is akin to an A321XLR without being one.

Air Astana is Kazakhstan’s flag carrier. According to ch-aviation, it has 11 A321LRs. Each frame has 166 seats in a two-class layout. There are 16 fully flat seats in business (2-2 and 1-1) and 150 seats in ecomomy (3-3; 33″ pitch).

Air Astana From Almaty To Heathrow

Credit: Flightradar24

The carrier serves this long route twice a week during the winter, when it is bitterly cold in Central Asia, and three times a week during the summer. In all cases, the 166-seat A321LR is deployed. The schedule is shown below.

Extra fuel tanks were not on Air Astana’s A321LRs last summer. As such, the carrier’s Heathrow flights stopped en route in Aktau or Atyrau to refuel. Of course, rerouting to avoid Russian airspace doesn’t help. It adds approximately 15% more distance than the shortest route between the two airports.

Flightradar24 data since last October shows that flights have nearly always been nonstop. Most of the time, the flight time has been just under or just above nine hours. However, on June 29, 2025, it took a whopping 10h 04m (!). Assuming this was not an error, it was very much an anomaly.

Only 64% Of Heathrow Seats Were Filled?!

Credit: Flickr

As this route is rarely discussed, it is worth briefly examining the numbers. According to UK Civil Aviation Authority data for January to August 2025, only 19,400 round-trip passengers were transported. Given its low frequency and low-capacity equipment, this small traffic volume is hardly surprising. Booking data shows it transported over half of all Heathrow-Almaty passengers; most of the rest flew via Istanbul with Turkish Airlines.

OAG data for the same eight months indicates that it had 30,500 round-trip seats for sale. This suggests that it only filled 64% of its available seats, which is, of course, very low. It is unclear how strong the fares and yields were, and the extent to which they partly offset the poor seat load factor. Of course, it meant the aircraft was lighter and could fly a greater distance.

Despite lower frequencies in the winter, this season was, unsurprisingly, the main culprit. It filled just 48% of seats in February. In contrast, 81% were filled in August. While winter capacity was much lower than during the summer, it was not sufficiently low to offset the much lower traffic. It’d be silly to only run weekly in the winter, and it wants to retain its winter slots at Heathrow. After all, like other carriers, the airline must use them or lose them.

Europe’s Joint-2nd-Longest Single-Aisle Nonstop Flight By Time

Credit: Shutterstock

At up to 9h 40m, only Iberia’s operation from Madrid to Washington Dulles is longer by time than Air Astana’s Almaty to Heathrow service. This is based on the maximum block time between November 2025 and April 2025. It may be different at other times. Of course, the Spanish flag carrier uses the A321XLR rather than the A321LR.

At up to 9h 35m, Air Astana Heathrow flights are the joint-second-longest single-aisle offering involving Europe. The maximum time is the same as for La Compagnie’s 76-seat, all-business A321neo offering from Milan Malpensa to Newark, which is an entirely different proposition.

It also has the same time as Iberia’s A321XLR operation from Madrid to Santo Domingo, which first saw that narrowbody in early October. Various other European narrowbody routes are timed at between 9h 15m and 9h 30m. While very long in themselves, they’re not long enough to have outpaced Air Astana’s UK offering. Not even Icelandair’s brand-new Miami route, which is timed at up to 8h 40m, comes close. I’ll be on it this weekend.