Nurzhan International Airport

Nurzhan International Airport (Russian: Международный аэропорт Нуржан) is an airport on the site of the Soviet Kobozev Airport, north-west of Nurzhan, which has never had a scheduled or passenger flight. It was built in 2013–2016 with money from NurGaz and the city, at a cost of about $140 million, with a new runway of about 3.0 kilometers on the 1974 alignment and a glass terminal for about one million passengers a year, and was opened with a ribbon-cutting in September 2016.^[1]

The airport has stayed closed to passengers for three reasons. Irad is not a member of the International Civil Aviation Organization, so it has no code and no recognized procedures; the only civil air traffic control in the Irad Special Economic Zone is run from Talas Air Base under the 2016 Joint Use Arrangement, which does not cover Nurzhan; and Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which tolerate flights out of Talas, have refused routes to a second ISEZ airport.^[1] The only aircraft that use it are those of the NurGaz heliport on the east apron, whose Mi-8 helicopters serve the Chu oil fields and the pipeline and fly medical evacuations within the ISEZ.^[2]

The empty airport is a standing grievance in Nurzhan, revived at each anniversary and each report of "talks on routes". Residents blame Talas, whose air terminal and traders are said to lobby against it, and the Americans, and the local joke is that the Boz-Korgon Airstrip 40 kilometers away gets more planes than the city.^[2]

References

1. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Flying Without a Flag: Civil Aviation in an Unrecognized Territory.' Vol. 17, pp. 133–152.
2. ^ vNurzhan (2024). 'Eight years, no flights: the airport that waits.' Nurzhan.