Air Astana's New Regional General Manager Announces Kuala Lumpur As New Regional Southeast Asian Hub

December 21, 2016

Air Astana’s New Regional General Manager Announces Kuala Lumpur As New Regional Southeast Asian Hub

Kuala Lumpur, 14 December 2016 – Air Astana welcomes its new Regional General Manager, Southeast Asia, Australia & New Zealand, Mr Balachandran Chinna Swami into office in September 2016. With the new Regional General Manager taking up office in Kuala Lumpur, this new installation also saw the move of Air Astana’s regional hub from Bangkok, Thailand to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

In the opening speech, Mr Balachandran notes that the decision to move the hub to Kuala Lumpur is based on the country’s strategic location, where it enables Air Astana to more conveniently serve its neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Australia, Singapore and Brunei. It will also allow the airline to further strengthen its market share in the CIS countries and Russia as Air Astana currently has the fastest connectivity from Kuala Lumpur to Russia.

Dr Serik Amirov, Counsellor of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Malaysia delivering the opening remarks on behalf of H.E. Daniyar Sarekenov Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Malaysia

Dr Serik Amirov, Counsellor of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Malaysia, highlighted during his speech that Kazakhstan is seeing an increase in popularity as a tourism destination and has seen up to 5,000 over passengers to date taking advantage of Air Astana’s popular Stopover programme designed especially for visitors and transit passengers travelling to Kazakhstan for either leisure or business.

Mr Balachandran Chinna Swami, Regional General Manager Southeast Asia, Australia & New Zealand

The Air Astana Kuala Lumpur team with Mr Balachandran Chinna Swami

Air Astana is the Official airline for the EXPO 2017 ‘Future Energy’ scheduled to be held in Astana from June – September 2017. This exhibition will help to bring together the global community in their efforts to take action in response to global energy challenges. It is a unique global meeting place that brings business, policy and technology together to put people at the heart of sustainable energy debate.

The evening continued with the presentation of awards recognising the efforts of the Air Astana’s top travel agencies before ending with dinner.