- Central Asia’s biggest airline listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2024
Air Astana has proposed significant dividend payments after flying nearly one million more passengers last year.
Central Asia’s biggest airline, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2024, is recommending $25.2million in special dividend payouts and $13million in ordinary dividends for investors.
The company carried 9 million people on its flights last year, compared to 8.1 million in 2023, helped by rising capacity and demand for air travel across Kazakhstan.
Combined with the allocation of capacity to higher margin routes in Asia and the Gulf, this boosted the firm’s turnover by 12.4 per cent to $1.3billion.
Air Astana added 21 new routes during the year, including 14 in the final quarter alone; its customers can now fly directly from Almaty to Medina in Saudi Arabia and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
As a result, the group’s adjusted earnings before nasties and recurring items jumped by 16.1 per cent to $338.6million.
Taking off: Air Astana carried 9m people last year, compared to 8.1m in 2023
Part of the firm’s motivation behind going public in London and on Kazakhstan’s AIX exchange was raising capital to improve its connectivity with major nearby aviation markets like China, India, and the Middle East.
It raised $370million from its oversubscribed initial public offering; around $250million went to defence contractor BAE Systems and the Kazakhstani sovereign wealth fund.
The two groups set up the air carrier in 2001 after BAE agreed to invest in the group while trying to sell radar systems to Kazakhstan’s military.
Air Astana’s listing constituted a rare victory for London’s struggling capital markets, which have struggled to attract new IPOs and lost many high-profile names through takeovers or defections to rival exchanges.
Among the businesses that have switched their primary listing to New York in recent years are Paddy Power owner Flutter Entertainment, plumbing products distributor Ferguson, and building materials giant CRH Holdings.
Peter Foster, chief executive of Air Astana Group, said: ‘We achieved strong growth in our first year as a public company, fulfilling our promises set out at IPO despite the capacity and cost challenges impacting the wider industry.’
Air Astana expects to expand further in 2025, with eight new routes in key growth markets planned, including flights from Almaty to Frankfurt, Guangzhou, Mumbai, and Da Nang in Vietnam.
It noted that installing a third fuel tank on its fleet of A321LR aeroplanes had boosted the volume of destinations within range.
Foster added: ‘Entering the new financial year, we are well positioned to deliver growth across both our brands underpinned by strong demand and expanded capacity.
‘While cost inflation and supply chain disruption across the wider industry are likely to remain for some time, we are among the best placed in the industry due to our low unit costs, high operating margins and dynamic approach to fleet management.’
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