A company from the UAE is set to take over the management of the Astana airport

Terminals Holding from the UAE is going to be in charge of the Astana airport under an agreement with Kazakhstan’s government / Photo: primeminister.kz

Kazakhstan is handing over the Astana airport to the operational management of Terminal Holdings. The two sides have already signed a relevant agreement.

What happened? According to the press service of the prime minister, the government and the foreign investor have agreed to cooperate on the development of the Astana airport and turn it into a multi-modal hub. The relevant agreement was signed in the Turkestan region.

What is the investor going to do? Terminals Holding will conduct an assessment of the airport’s activities and assume the task of airport management.

«The top priority task for the investor is to ensure that the airport’s runway is ready to be reconstructed and modernized… The reconstruction of the ground infrastructure is expected in 2024,» the press service said in a statement.

Moreover, Terminals Holding should prepare a long-term business plan for airport development to meet the expectations of the government and the company itself.

The government says that Terminals Holding will be managing the facility on certain terms.

Terminals Holding is a well-known provider of airport and aviation services across promising markets in Asia and Africa. The company is quite experienced in constructing, exploiting and managing international airports. Terminals Holding is a sister company of Abu Dhabi Ports Group.

Terminals Holding is also engaged in developing the Navoyi International Airport in Uzbekistan. Transport Infrastructure Services Ltd., the holding’s subsidiary, is currently in charge of developing airports in Bosaso and Berbera in Somalia. Several months ago the holding said that it would take over the management of the Malabo International Airport in Equatorial Guinea. According to the company’s website, it manages $2 billion worth of assets in 15 countries and has 1,800 employees and 10 strategic partners.

CEO of Abu Dhabi Ports Group Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi met with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana in January of this year. At the time, the two sides discussed how they could implement joint investment projects in the spheres of transport and logistics.

The Ministry of Industry and Infrastructural Development of Kazakhstan announced its intention to sign a memorandum with Terminals Holdings in June 2023. At the time, the ministry said that the investor would facilitate the process of turning the airport into a regional multi-modal hub.

Last year, the airport of Astana reported a 24% increase in passenger traffic year-on-year from 4.8 million passengers to six million.

In 2022, the airport reported a profit for the first time in the past few years. The last time the Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport obtained a profit of $3.1 million was in 2018. The period from 2019 to 2021 was not good for the airport in terms of finances. However, in 2022, the press service of the airport reported $11 million in net profit and $52 million in gross operational revenue.