NUR-SULTAN – A year and a half into the pandemic, Kazakhstan has so far resumed air travel with 16 countries, reports the Kazakh Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development.
Flights are resumed cautiously given the changing nature of the coronavirus pandemic.
Regular international flights are operated between 16 countries on 44 routes with a frequency of 184 flights per week.
The most frequent flights are to Turkey with 52 flights per week, followed by the United Arab Emirates (31 flights per week) and Uzbekistan (32 flights per week).
Flights have also resumed to Russia (10 flights per week), Georgia (12 flights per week), Kyrgyzstan (9 flights per week), Belarus (8 flights per week), Ukraine (5 flights per week), Germany (9 flights per week), Tajikistan (2 flights per week), South Korea (2 flights per week), Egypt (2 charter flights per week), Netherlands (1 flight per week), Montenegro (7 flights per week), Poland (1 flight per week) and Armenia (1 flight per week).
All passengers departing from Nur-Sultan’s and Almaty’s international airport must have the Ashyq mobile app to enter the airport.
The app, which is integrated with the data from the Kazakh Ministry of Healthcare, shows a person’s status ranging from green (no movement restrictions, recent negative COVID-19 test) and blue (no movement restrictions) to yellow (contact with an infected person) and red (positive COVID-19). A person needs to fill in her or his individual identification number.
Citizens who passed a full course of vaccination will be identified with a green status.
The mobile app has been developed to allow businesses to continue their work amid the pandemic restrictions and minimize the spread of the virus. Since its nationwide launch in May, the system has so far revealed around 8,200 citizens with red status and 7,200 with yellow status trying to enter the facilities.
Though the app has raised concerns about the privacy of personal information, the app is used by more than four million citizens, according to the Atamaken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs.
