ICAO and The EU
The airline’s international route development has been heavily influenced by regulatory factors beyond its control. In April 2009, an audit by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), found the Kazakhstan Civil Aviation Committee (CAC) to be non-compliant in key areas of regulatory oversight. This resulted in a blanket ban of all Kazakhstan-registered airlines from flying to, from or within the European Union by the EU’s Air Safety Committee (ASC). Air Astana was the sole exception, exempted from the ban on account of its unique (for its region) structure and regulatory framework, including its European EASA 145 aircraft engineering license, the registration of its aircraft with the Department of Civil Aviation of Aruba, a Netherlands dependent territory, and its IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) registration. However it was, and remains, included on the ASC’s Annex B, restricting its EU operations to the level of frequencies operated at the time of imposition of the ban in July 2009. Since then no follow-up ICAO audit of the CAC has taken place, resulting in subsequent meetings of the ASC electing to retain the status quo. Therefore the airline has been unable to add to its daily service to Frankfurt from Astana, its 6 weekly service to Amsterdam from Atyrau (operated in code share with KLM), and its twice weekly service to London from Almaty.
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