AIR ASTANA DELAYS

Keith Leo, Singapore

I was supposed to be flying on August 17 on Air Astana flight KC296 from Abu Dhabi to Almaty. I thought it would be a timely flight as all passengers were waiting at the gate 40 minutes ahead of the 1125 departure time. Unfortunately, what followed was a series of disasters.

At 1135 ground staff informed us of the flight delay – no reason was given and they could not confirm the new departure time. At midday, ground crew said the flight would take off at 1220. At 1315, we were all chased out of the boarding area, given a McDonalds lunch yet still no information of the new boarding time. At 1415, we congregated at the boarding area again and were told to wait. At 1445 it was finally revealed that there were no Embraer engineers available to check the plane was flight-worthy, and a new boarding time of August 18 at 0200 was given. All passengers were then ushered to the lounge.

At 0230, ground staff finally appeared to inform us that the new boarding time was 0730, because flight crew time had maxed out and they needed to rest. At 0700, our allocated boarding gate was not open, and we had to wait 15 minutes before being ushered to another boarding gate. At 0730, we were finally able to board, and the flight finally departed at 0805 after a gruelling delay of more than 20 hours.

Throughout the whole episode, the ground staff did not offer a word of apology, and looked more frustrated than apologetic. My travel agent wrote to Air Astana to get the flight delay report, and the airline had the audacity to issue a fake report that stated the flight departed at 0400 instead of 0800. My request for a revised report was met with another inaccurate timing of 0720.

In an era where businesses take customer rights and customer service very seriously, Air Astana is severely lacking. Unfortunately, I don’t expect its service to improve in the near future since there aren’t any foreign international airlines flying to Kazakhstan to give them a run for their money.