Air Astana has completed the first 12-year C-check ever to be performed in Kazakhstan.
This thorough maintenance procedure was conducted on one of the airline’s Airbus A321 aircraft at Air Astana’s own MRO facilities at Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport (NQZ), in the Kazakh capital.
A C-check involves an in-depth inspection of every part of an aircraft, with all of its elements being systematically stripped down, then put back in and tested. The engines are also removed from their attachments and examined.
The whole process concludes with a flight test, during which all functions and systems of the aircraft are also verified in real working conditions.
In 2023, Air Astana was approved by the European Aviation Safety Agency to conduct 12-year C-checks, the most complex level of this maintenance procedure, on Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft.
This represented the culmination of a gradual process that saw the Kazakh airline progressively build up its in-house MRO capabilities and receive approval to conduct increasingly more complex types of checks: 1C-checks in 2019, 2C-checks in 2022 and 6-year C-checks in 2023.
As further proof of Air Astana’s expanded technical capabilities, earlier in 2024, in collaboration with Airbus, it completed a special modification of one of its A321LR aircraft to add extra fuel tanks.
This has allowed Air Astana to extend the range of this aircraft enough to be able to operate its key Almaty (ALA) to London Heathrow (LHR) route nonstop.
At 9 hours and 45 minutes, this 3,500-mile route is, as of November 2024, one of the longest ever to have been flown by a narrow body aircraft anywhere in the world. Since an intermediate technical stop is no longer necessary, the aircraft’s range extension has brought about a significant reduction in the journey time between the British capital and Kazakhstan’s largest city.
Air Astana’s CEO, Peter Foster, confirmed to AeroTime that the airline will soon be retrofitting other A321LR aircraft in its fleet in order to expand the carrier’s network options.
During a visit to Kazakhstan, AeroTime was granted rare access to Air Astana’s MRO facility to have a close look at the aircraft undergoing the C-check.
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