Aktau International Airport (), formerly Shevchenko-Central, is an

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports, and feature longer runways and have faciliti ...

Mangystau Region Mangystau (), formerly known as Mangyshlak ( Russian: ) from 1973 until 1988, is a region of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Aqtau (a seaport), which has a population of 183,350 (2017); the entire Mangystau Province has a population of 745,909 (2022) ...

, Kazakhstan. It is the primary

serving the city of

Aktau Aktau (; ) is a city in south-west Kazakhstan, on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. Aktau is on the Mangyshlak Peninsula in the Mangystau Region. Known for its strategic location on the Caspian Sea, Aktau is a port, playing a key role in th ...

on the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

. The airport is the eighth-busiest international air passenger gateway into

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

, the 50th-busiest airport in the post-Soviet states, and the fourth-busiest airport in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

. Aktau International Airport is located northwest of Aktau. The airport features one passenger terminal and one runway. It serves as a focus city for

SCAT Airlines SCAT Airlines, legally PLL SCAT Air Company, is an airline from Kazakhstan with its head office at Shymkent International Airport in Şymkent. It operates services to all major cities of Kazakhstan and neighboring countries. Its main base is Şymk ...

. The airport is served year-round by

Aeroflot PJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines (, ), commonly known as Aeroflot ( or ; , , ), is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Russia. Aeroflot is headquartered in the Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow, with its hub being Sheremetyevo Interna ...

Air Astana Air Astana () is an airline and the flag carrier of Kazakhstan. Based in Almaty, the airline was founded by the Government of Kazakhstan's sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna (51%) and BAE Systems (49%) and commenced operations on 15 May 2002. I ...

, Qazaq Air and on a seasonal basis by

Belavia Belavia, formally Belavia Belarusian Airlines (; ), is the flag carrier of Belarus, headquartered in Minsk. The state-owned company had, as of 2007, 1,017 employees. Belavia serves a network of routes between Commonwealth of Independent States, ...

and

Sunday Airlines SCAT Airlines, legally PLL SCAT Air Company, is an airline from Kazakhstan with its head office at Shymkent International Airport in Şymkent. It operates services to all major cities of Kazakhstan and neighboring countries. Its main base is Şymk ...

. The airport opened in 1983 as Shevchenko-Central and was commonly known as Shevchenko Airport (the airport's current

IATA code IATA codes are abbreviations that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) publishes to facilitate air travel. They are typically 1, 2, 3, or 4 character combinations (referred to as unigrams, digrams, trigrams, or tetragrams, respec ...

, SCO, is derived from the city's previous name,

Shevchenko Shevchenko ( ; alternative spellings Schevchenko, Ševčenko, Shevcenko, Szewczenko, Chevchenko) is a family name of Ukrainians, Ukrainian origin. It is derived from the Ukrainian word ''shvets'' ( ; ), literally meaning "Shoemaking, cobbler or sho ...

Overview

In November 1996 the joint stock company Aqtau International Airport was established. The development of the oil industry in the

Caspian region The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

required an increase in freight volumes and a rapid delivery of necessary equipment for the oil industry. This, in turn, led to the need for reconstruction of the airfield and an increase in passenger capacity at the terminal. With 1 million passengers passing through in 2018, the airport was the third busiest in Kazakhstan, after

Almaty Airport Almaty International Airport is an international airport in Almaty, Kazakhstan. It is larger than Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport (NQZ) in Astana and is the main international gateway into the country. It is a principal hub of Air ...

and Astana Airport, and was the 50th-busiest airport in the Post-Soviet states.

Operations

Aktau International Airport is used by 6 airlines flying to 14 destinations in 4 countries. The airport is the primary hub of SCAT Airlines. It has one passenger terminal. In 2018, it served 1 023 900 passengers, making it the third-busiest airport in Kazakhstan. The busiest single destination in passenger numbers is Atyrau. It has one

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

designated 11/29 with an

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

surface measuring . The airport is able to accommodate jets the size of the

AN-124 The Antonov An-124 Ruslan (; ; NATO reporting name: Condor) is a large, strategic airlift, four-engined aircraft that was designed in the 1980s by the Antonov design bureau in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (USSR). The An-124 is the ...

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body aircraft, wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After the introduction of the Boeing 707, 707 in October 1958, Pan Am ...

Il-76 The Ilyushin Il-76 (; NATO reporting name: Candid) is a multi-purpose, fixed-wing, four-engine turbofan strategic airlifter designed by the Soviet Union's Ilyushin design bureau as a commercial freighter in 1967, to replace the Antonov An-12. ...

and lighter, as well as helicopters of all types. However, smaller jets like the

Airbus A319 The Airbus A319 is a member of the Airbus A320 family of short- to medium-range, narrow-body, commercial passenger twin-engine jet airliners manufactured by Airbus. The A319 carries 124 to 156 passengers and has a maximum range of . Final ass ...

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is an American narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Boeing Renton Factory, Renton factory in Washington (state), Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the t ...

and CRJ-200 are more commonly seen there. In 2007, the airport was given a concession period of 30 years to the ATM Group. The contract includes construction of a new passenger terminal. The new terminal was completed in 2009. The capacity was 450 passengers per hour and the total area of , including the area occupied by the VIP and CIP halls. The terminal is equipped with electronic and electromechanical systems. These include passenger telescopic ladders, racks of electronic registration, HVAC (heating and cooling system), FIDS (Alert System departures on the electronic scoreboard), X-ray scanners, CCTV, lifts and escalators.

is based in Aqtau and operates flights to Baku, Tbilisi, Moscow and various other Russian cities. Air Astana operates daily flights to Atyrau, Almaty and Astana. There are also flights operated by

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter services to and from Aqtau:

Statistics

Passenger figures

Accidents and incidents

*On December 25, 2024,

Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku, Azerbaijan, to Kadyrov Grozny International Airport near Grozny, Russia. On 25 December 2024, the Embraer 190 oper ...

, an

Embraer 190 The Embraer E-Jet family is a series of four-abreast, narrow-body, short- to medium-range, twin-engined jet airliners designed and produced by Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer. The E-Jet was designed to complement Embraer’s earlier ...

jet, crashed near the airport as it attempted an emergency landing, saving 29 out of the 67 occupants onboard. The plane, en route from

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

in Azerbaijan to

Grozny Grozny (, ; ) is the capital city of Chechnya, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, it had a population of 328,533 — up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Russian Census, 2002 ce ...

in Russia, had been rerouted due to fog.

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Airports in Kazakhstan

Airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...