Kazakhstan, China and Uzbekistan dey move to open more flights across Central Asia, as aviation officials from China and five Central Asian countries gather in Tashkent from November 3 to 5 for the China–Central Asia (C5+1) Civil Aviation Cooperation Working Group Conference to discuss how to open the market further.
During bilateral talks on November 4, Kazakhstan and China agree to raise the number of permitted weekly flights between them from 150 to 180 and add Chengdu and Kashgar to their route network, according to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport. Saltanat Tompiyeva, chairwoman of the Civil Aviation Committee under the Ministry of Transport, lead the Kazakhstan delegation, while Bai Wenli, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, represent China.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan also agree to allow up to 60 flights per week on each of the Almaty–Tashkent and Astana–Tashkent routes, according to Kazakhstan’s Civil Aviation Committee. Other routes between the two countries go rise from 14 to 20 weekly flights. The talks involved Saltanat Tompiyeva and Jamoliddin Nazarov, head of the Air Transport Department at Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Transport.
The expansion dey happen as passenger and cargo traffic dey rise across the region. A Eurasian Development Bank study published on October 13 show say Central Asian airlines carried 31.7 million passengers in 2025, almost twice as many as in 2019. Between 2015 and 2025, available airline seats in the region grew by an average of 7.7% every year, nearly three times the global rate. Low-cost airlines accounted for 21% of available seats in 2025, with Kazakhstan’s FlyArystan as the largest operator in that segment. Air cargo carried by airlines in the region more than quadrupled between 2023 and 2025 to 335,700 metric tons, and Uzbek operators carried about 67% of the total.
Kazakhstan accounted for 48.7% of Central Asia’s airline passenger traffic in 2025, the largest share, according to the bank. By late October 2026, airlines were operating 21 routes between Kazakhstan and China and had carried more than one million passengers between the two countries since the beginning of the year, according to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Transport. New services this year include FlyArystan’s Almaty–Xi’an route in June and Almaty–Chongqing in September, while Air Astana began Astana–Guangzhou in June. On October 30, Air Astana and China Southern Airlines signed a strategic partnership to make connecting flights between their networks easier.
Uzbekistan get Central Asia’s second-largest passenger aviation market. Its airports handled 12.66 million passengers in the first nine months of 2026, up 13% from the previous year, according to Uzbekistan Airports. Trade between China and Central Asia reached $106.3 billion in 2025, up 12% from the previous year. The aviation growth also coincide with rising tourism and the gradual easing of restrictions on airlines across the region. Kazakhstan introduced an “open skies” policy at major airports in 2019, relaxing limits on foreign carriers, while Uzbekistan also eased access to its market.
