Summary Air Astana will fly non-stop this winter between Almaty, Kazakhstan's most populous city, and London Heathrow. As the Airbus A321LR-operated flights will avoid Russian airspace, the block time to the UK will be up to 9h 35m. While stronger winter winds will reduce the operating aircraft's range, Air Astana's relatively low-capacity 166-seat LRs will help.
Fancy being on the world's longest regularly configured non-stop A321LR flight? Now you can. It is because of Air Astana , which will switch its Almaty to London Heathrow service—which avoids Russian airspace—from one-stop to non-stop this winter. Of other non-stop LR-operated routes, only La Compagnie's 76-seat all-business-configured aircraft from Milan to Newark have a longer block time (9h 45m in winter), but that's an apples-and-oranges comparison.
Air Astana's non-stop offering will have a 2h+ longer block time than Wizz Air's inaugural A321XLR route, set to begin next June . The airline group current operates a fleet of nearly 40 aircraft. Air Astana's Heathrow service: a summary Kazakhstan's flag carrier has served Heathrow for around two decades.
Flights were nearly always non-stop (through Russian airspace) on the now-retired Boeing 757-200ER, occasionally interspersed by the 767-300ER. Since 2021, Air Astana's Heathrow service has exclusively been on the A321LR. Due to the Russia-Ukraine war and seemingly because Air Astana cannot obtain insurance coverage to fly to Russia or through its airspace, flig.