We Interviewed Nadya Özcan About Air Astana's Future Plans and New Applications

Kazakhstan-based Air Astana continues to be the most preferred airline company with customer reviews on TripAdvisor and Skytrax. We interviewed Nadya Özcan, Air Astana Country Manager for Turkey, within the scope of developments in the aviation sector, business travel and Air Astana's success formulas. Pleasant reading.

HIS Travel: Can we get to know you a little better for tourism workers and travelers? How did you get acquainted with tourism and cross paths with Air Astana?

Nadya Özcan: My acquaintance with aviation began coincidentally 36 years ago when I was a student at Boğaziçi University. In my aviation career, before Air Astana, I can also count the years I served as station manager at SAS, Cathay Pacific and EL Al Airlines. So much so that the most important thing for me was that I performed these duties as the first female station manager in Turkey.

I have been working at Air Astana Airlines for a total of 13 years, including 11 years as a station manager and the last 2 years as a country manager. I consider myself lucky to have the opportunity to develop in different areas because I have worked in different divisions of the sector. Easy to say this 36-year career period is full of bittersweet memories, experiences, endless counting...

HIS Travel: You have held senior positions in many airline companies. What would you like to say about the future of the tourism sector?

Nadya Özcan: As long as the world returns, people will continue to travel. Travel plans will not run out, although the goals are different, but will inevitably be exposed to changes. Both developing technology and conditions are changing and improving people's travel habits. In the current pandemic conditions, changes such as people preferring direct flights instead of connecting flights, turning to boutique hotels or rental houses rather than all-inclusive hotels are examples of this. After that, the tourism sector will continue to adapt to people's changing preferences. It is obvious that those who can accord with this process can survive.

HIS Travel: When you think about the first days you started the sector, what can you say is the biggest change?

Nadya Özcan: It is difficult to talk about a single change, but we can say that the leading factor of the biggest change in the industry is technology. The first years I started were difficult periods when labor was felt too much. From ticket sales agents, the starting point of the trip, to the airports where the trip started and ended, all the work was done by people. These days, all stages from buying tickets to delivering your baggage at the airport of arrival can be done thanks to technological systems. Editing printed - multi-copy tickets, making changes to them, collecting and accounting for coupons at the check-in counter was an important process. It was a value that physically passed through dozens of hands until the ticket was accounted for, and now all these transactions are done through electronic systems, and the ticket has become almost invisible.

"In SKYTRAX reviews, we were among the best regional airlines in the Central Asia and India region. "

HIS Travel: You were awarded the “Major Airlines” category for the second time in a row for 5 years at the award ceremony organized by APEX (Airline Passenger Experience Association) in Los Angeles. It's really quite a prestigious assessment. What are Air Astana's success formulas?

Nadya Özcan: In fact, this is not the first award we have received, we have been among the best regional airlines in the Central Asia and India region in SKYTRAX reviews several times before. All these rewards are tools that show the accuracy of our path as we go towards our goal and increase our motivation. We are an airline that aims to be the best in safety and customer service at all flight points we serve. Thanks to our senior management's growth strategy that is down-to-earth instead of quick and uncontrolled growth, and profit-oriented without compromising flight safety and our customer service quality, we continue our operations smoothly even in this difficult period of world aviation.

TripAdvisor and Skytrax customer reviews remain outstanding in the first quarter of 2021.

HIS Travel: The tourism sector entered in a difficult process during the COVID-19 period and began to return to its old days with the steps of normalization. Of course, our life is much different now than it was before the COVID-19 era. What innovations are waiting for passengers inside planes and what are your pandemic-era measures?

Nadya Özcan: There are various predictions that the tourism sector will return to the old times of COVID-19 in a real sense, but as you said, I do not think we can be fully involved in the pre-COVID-19 period. This new process has brought with it numerous measures, some of which seem to become permanent. First of all, we informed our business partners and passengers about issues such as mutual flight restrictions received by the country's authorities, flight cancellations and PCR test requested before the flight. Also, as an airline, we took precautions to start at our check-in counters at the airport.

We have increased our counter numbers so that our passengers arriving at the check-in counter at the airport can make their transactions as soon as possible and without queue. Likewise, with the measures we took before boarding the plane, we minimized the clutter in the bellows area and at the plane door during boarding. On the plane, with the special agreement with our ground handling company, we receive a special COVID-19 hygiene service and provide detailed cleaning before each flight. On the plane, we distribute hygiene packages to our passengers in both business and economy class to use during their travels. Besides food and beverage services, our cabin crews regularly check and warn all passengers about the correct use of their masks. I think that the TravelPass application, announced by IATA with the number of people vaccinated in the world and known as the “vaccine passport”, will be the most important issue for our industry in the coming period.

"As an airline, our mission is to contribute as much as we can to social assistance and support projects while serving the aviation development of the Republic of Kazakhstan."

HIS Travel: Air Astana has valuable efforts to contribute to the development of civil aviation in Kazakhstan, to participate in social assistance and support projects. What do corporate social responsibility projects mean as a corporate culture? What kind of works are you doing?

Nadya Özcan: As an airline, our mission is to contribute as much as we can to social assistance and support projects while serving the aviation development of the Republic of Kazakhstan. We have participated and continue to participate in various social responsibility projects, especially in the areas of environment, education, sports and healthy life, national events, culture and art and public health. One of our most important criteria is the participation of Air Astana personnel in these social responsibility projects. Our personnel accepts it as a duty to contribute to the society of which they are a part. As part of the BizBirgemiz (We Are Together) campaign, which was launched during the quarantine period in Kazakhstan, our personnel also contributed to the campaign by collecting various food aid for needers and delivering them to their homes. Besides, we make the wishes of children come true as much as we can with our “Write a Letter to Santa Claus” organization, which is traditionally organized in the orphanages before every Christmas.

HIS Travel: İstanbul-Almaty and Nur-Sultan flights carry out with new Airbus A321neo LR type and more comfortable aircraft in both economy and business class. You have also started flights from Kazakhstan to destinations such as the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Egypt. Will similar innovations and different routes come?

Nadya Özcan: As an airline, the two most important issues we focus on are airworthiness and passenger comfort. As of January 2021, the average age of our A321Neo LR aircraft in our fleet is 0.58 years. The fact that İstanbul is one of the first designated flight points after our company management has added these aircraft to our fleet is the clearest indication of how important its perspective of the Turkish market is. For the first time in this winter season, we continued our flights to Antalya-Almaty and Antalya-Nur-Sultan without interruption, where we previously only flew during the summer season. Since many countries we have flown in before do not open their borders or allow restricted flights, we are also working to offer our passengers different alternatives. At the moment, we are focusing more on holiday destinations. Besides, as another indicator of our importance to the Turkish market, our low-cost airline, FlyArystan, has decided to make direct flights from the Turkestan region of Kazakhstan to İstanbul two days a week.

“We have recently launched our "Nomad Corporate" corporate loyalty program, which is exclusive to our passengers traveling for business."

HIS Travel: The growing trade volume between Turkey and Kazakhstan and the construction dominance of Turkish companies in the region are known. Places such as Bukhara, Samarkand, Turkestan, Shymkent also began to be discovered. This makes both business and individual travel attractive. In the coming period, will different campaigns and innovations be waiting for employees who will travel both for tourism purposes and for business travel?

Nadya Özcan: We have recently launched our special “Nomad Corporate” corporate loyalty program for our passengers traveling for business. This program is specially designed for small and medium-sized businesses, and thanks to their membership, both employees and companies can earn miles from business travels and use these miles for their later travels. Also, for large corporate companies, we can have agreements with special privileges for the company.

From a tourism perspective, we are aware that these destinations are very special geographies worth exploring. For this purpose, we will do our best to expand awareness of this existing potential, whether it is we or the tourism authorities of Kazakhstan. As Air Astana, we work together with tour operator agencies that make international tours and digital and social media experts with high interaction in the field of travel in our future plans.

Finally, our passengers who want to travel at lower costs can fly directly from İstanbul to Turkestan, the spiritual capital of Kazakhstan, with low-cost FlyArystan Airlines, a subsidiary of Air Astana. Located in the heart of all this geography, Turkestan is 2 hours away from Shymkent and 3-4 hours away from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

HIS Travel: Are there any destinations where you feel good when you go, that you want to go once again?

Nadya Özcan: I love the sea very much, I usually preferred tropical countries. The islands of Thailand are among my favorites (Koh Lipe, Koh Lanta)

Paris means something else to me. Besides that, Mexico... In my opinion, it is one of the countries that should be seen so much that history, nature, culture are intertwined.