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Kazakhstan's 'Air Astana' has decided to relocate bulk of its technical personnel to Astana.

"This year only the technical staff of the airline will be relocated and based at Astana International Airport," President of JSC Air Astana Peter Foster said at a press conference on October 31, Kazakh media reported.

The new aviation technical center will be established in Astana by late 2017. The relocation of the technical staff is planned for early next year. The company's administrative staff will remain in Almaty, as the full redeployment requires significant financial resources.

Air Astana operates flights on 65 international and domestic routes. The company plans to expand the fleet to 64 airliners over the next ten years. The airline's staff will increase by 11 percent until 2020.

Today, the airliner requires pilots, engineers, mechanics, flight attendants and agents for passenger service.

"We are experiencing a major deficit in the field of technical personnel, since we are working on international safety standards, and these specialists must have a high level of professionalism," Foster noted.

In this regard, the airline intends to launch its own program for the training of aircraft technicians, within which will train engineers and mechanic technicians.

In addition, Air Astana conducts training of pilots in Spain and Ireland, and flight attendants - in Germany and the UK. The training programs for pilots and technical personnel are financed by the airline.

Today, the staff of Air Astana is 5,000 people, and the fleet of airliners consists of 31 aircraft.

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