SCAT Airlines, legally PLL SCAT Air Company, is an

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

from

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 ...

with its head office at

Shymkent International Airport Shymkent (, ; ) is a city in southern Kazakhstan, located near the border with Uzbekistan. It holds the status of a city of republican significance, one of only three cities in Kazakhstan with this distinction, alongside Almaty and Astana. As of ...

Şymkent Shymkent (, ; ) is a city in southern Kazakhstan, located near the border with Uzbekistan. It holds the status of a city of republican significance, one of only three cities in Kazakhstan with this distinction, alongside Almaty and Astana. As of ...

. It operates services to all major cities of Kazakhstan and neighboring countries. Its main base is Şymkent Airport, with focus cities at Aqtau International Airport,

Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport , alternatively referred by its previous name as Astana International Airport until 2017 (or simply Astana Airport), is the international airport serving Astana, Kazakhstan, the capital and second most ...

, and

Almaty International 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 airline hub, principal ...

Flight International ''Flight International'', formerly ''Flight'', is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", i ...

12–18 April 2005

History

The airline was established and started operations in 1997. Its name is the

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

of Special Cargo Air Transport. SCAT founded Sunday Airlines as a new charter venture and subsidiary, for which SCAT operates four Boeing 757-200s and one Boeing 767-300ER.ch-aviation.com - SCAT
retrieved 17 June 2015 In November 2017, the airline signed a firm contract for the purchase of six aircraft of the latest generation Boeing 737 MAX 8 with the American corporation Boeing. On 29 March 2018, the company's fleet replenished the first Boeing 737 MAX 8 (with CFM International LEAP-1B engines) in any post-Soviet country. This is the first of the six purchased Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. In 2018, European airspace restrictions were lifted for SCAT Airlines and in May 2018,

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

became their first scheduled EU destination. In March 2018, SCAT Airlines was accepted as a full member of the

International Air Transport Association The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is an airline trade association founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff conferences tha ...

(IATA). SCAT Airlines became the second Kazakhstan airline included in the IATA register. On March 13, 2019, the operation of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft was suspended in Kazakhstan. On February 18, 2021, SCAT Airlines, becoming the first airline outside North America to do so, resumed regular commercial flights on

Boeing 737 MAX The Boeing 737 MAX is a series of narrow-body aircraft developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes as the fourth generation of the Boeing 737. It succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation and incorporates more efficient CFM International LEAP engin ...

after an almost two-year ban on the operation of these aircraft in Kazakhstan and elsewhere after two air crashes -

Lion Air Flight 610 Lion Air Flight 610 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Soekarno–Hatta International Airport, Tangerang, to Depati Amir Airport, Pangkal Pinang, in Indonesia. On 29 October 2018, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 operating the route, carrying ...

in October 2018 in Indonesia and

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. On 10 March 2019, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 ai ...

in March 2019 in Ethiopia.

Destinations

Codeshare and Interline agreements

SCAT Airlines

codeshares A codeshare agreement, also known simply as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number (the "airli ...

with

Azerbaijan Airlines Azerbaijan Airlines (), also known as AZAL, is the national flag carrier and largest airline of Azerbaijan. Based in Baku, adjacent to Heydar Aliyev International Airport, the carrier operates to destinations across Asia, the Commonwealth of Ind ...

and Interlines with

APG Airlines APG Airlines, a French airline based at Toulouse, France that was created by APG. It operates flights between Toulouse Blagnac Airport and Lorient Airport. APG Airlines is a member of IATA and sits on the board of ERA An era is a span of ti ...

Fleet

, the SCAT Airlines fleet consists of these aircraft:

Incidents and accidents

* On 29 January 2013, SCAT Airlines Flight 760 crashed near Kyzyltu during a low-visibility approach to

. All 16 passengers and 5 crew were killed. * On 26 July 2018, a SCAT Airlines Boeing 757-200, registration UP-B5705 performing flight DV-5038, struck its tail onto the runway surface with 236 passengers and 9 crew while going around at Almaty International Airport. No passengers or crew suffered injuries. The aircraft, however, received substantial damage.

References

External links

Official website
{{Airlines of Kazakhstan Airlines of Kazakhstan Airlines established in 1997 Airlines formerly banned in the European Union 1997 establishments in Kazakhstan Transport in Shymkent