New international terminal at Almaty airport to be set into service ahead of schedule

The Almaty International Airport will open its new international terminal two months ahead of schedule. According to CEO of TAV Airports Serkan Kaptan, the terminal will be ready to open in June of this year. He reported this directly to Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov.

As Kaptan noted, construction activities are 87 complete.

«We are going to open our new international terminal in June 2024, while the existing terminal will be used for domestic flights only,» Kaptan said.

He also highlighted that the combined capacity of the two terminals will reach 14 million passengers per year. Moreover, the company wants to boost the flow of cargo going through the airport to 100,000 tons.

In October 2023, TAV Airports said that the new international terminal of the Almaty airport would be opened in August 2024. The company decided to build the new terminal with a floor area of 53,500 square meters because of passengers complaining about huge lines near the luggage carousel, lack of parking spaces and other problems. The new terminal is expected to solve all these issues.

Who is the owner of the Almaty airport? In April 2021, Turkish holding TAV Airports acquired 85% of the Almaty International Airport shares and affiliated providers of jet fuel and catering services. The remaining 15% of the shares are controlled by the Kazakhstan Infrastructure Fund under management by VPE Capital.

In early April 2023, the media reported about a Kazakhstani company that illegally owned commercial premises in the passenger terminal of the Almaty International Airport for 20 years. However, prosecutors managed to seize this property and return it to the public domain.