#Kazakhstan to resume international flights from mid-June

Flights to Turkey, China, South Korea, Thailand, Georgia, and Japan will resume on June 20 in a safe manner, Kazakhstan Civil Aviation Committee said in a statement.

‘‘The number of flights on international routes will be operated based on existing intergovernmental agreements on air traffic and depend on the commercial loading of aircraft on each route,’’ reads the statement published on the committee’s website.

Tickets for these flights will go on sale in accordance with the schedule published on the websites of airlines. Further destinations will be unveiled as the epidemiological situation improves, according to the committee.

Kazakhstan’s Chief Sanitary Officer Ayzhan Yesmagambetova has responded to the recent changes making amendments to the existing order aimed at strengthening lockdown measures to prevent coronavirus infection among the population of Kazakhstan.

According to the new rules, restrictive measures will be applied for regular passengers arriving from abroad, depending on the country from which they arrived.

The first group includes China, South Korea, Japan, Georgia, and Thailand. Passengers from these countries are required to fill out a health questionnaire and will be taken temperature measurements. At the same time, passengers from Turkey are included in the second group as they will be presented with more stringent requirements due to the epidemiological situation in the country. Passengers from Turkey will have to present a certificate of having tested negative for coronavirus or they will be tested less than 48 hours after their arrival. Those who have tested positive for Covid-19 will be placed in special infectious disease hospitals.

The third group includes countries with which Kazakhstan has not yet reached agreements to resume reciprocal flights.

Those exempted from the new rules are foreign and Kazakh government delegations, members of international delegations arriving in Kazakhstan at the invitation of the foreign ministry, employees of diplomatic missions, consular offices and missions of international organizations accredited in Kazakhstan, as well as members of their families, and airline crews.

Meanwhile, the flight expansion comes two weeks after the government of Kazakhstan unveiled plans to resume flights to destinations including Seoul and Beijing from June.

Central Asia’s largest country sealed off its borders on March 16, in an effort to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, while Kazakhstan air carrier Air Astana canceled all of its international flights starting from March 29. Domestic flights resumed on 25 May to all regions, in accordance with the government decision.

More than 15,100 people in Kazakhstan are confirmed to have contracted the COVID-19 virus, while 81 deaths have been recorded in the country, according to the latest figures reported by media.