New Qazaq Air chief appointed ahead of sale to Vietnam's Sovico Group

ASTANA. May 24 (Interfax) - Qazaq Air CFO Adilbek Umraliyev has been appointed acting CEO effective May 21, the carrier's press service reported on Friday.

Previously, the acting head of the company was Nurlan Zhakupov, who replaced Erkin Nauryzbaev, who left his post, on March 1, 2024.

Umraliyev joined Qazaq Air in 2019 from the Samruk-Kazyna state fund, where he worked in the assets management unit since 2010.

Samruk-Kazyna and the Vietnamese Sovico Group on May 23 entered into a deal to sell 100% of the shares of Qazaq Air to Aviation Holdings Company, which is part of the Sovico group. The signing of the purchase and sale agreement and closing of the transaction is expected in the near future.

In the next five years the investor undertakes to supply the airline with 20-50 Airbus and Boeing aircraft. The foreign direct investment will amount to more than $1 billion.

Samruk-Kazyna also said that "the investor accepted the obligation to repay Qazaq Air's debt to the fund in full," which was reported to be 38 billion tenge and must be repaid by 2033.

Qazaq Air is an airline created to serve regional routes in Kazakhstan. The air fleet consists of 5 De Havilland Dash-8-Q400NG aircraft. The airline carried more than 588,000 passengers in 2023