Creative Kitchens


Up with best in Kazakhstan


As sleeping giants go, Kazakhstan is pretty big. It is also waking up fast, led by a dynamic and fast- growing airline. So how is the catering matching up? Patrick Murray visits Almaty to find out


Air Astana president Peter Foster is an ex-Cathay Pacific man, so he should know something about inflight service. When he came to the Kazakhstan flag carrier Air Astana in 2003, two years after its inception, what he found in the F&B area was not always the best. In his office he has some photographic evidence of this, some of which is unsettling to say the least. Not for publication in a family magazine like ours. However, since those distant days, things


have moved on impressively. Internationally the network is now approaching 20 major destinations including London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul, Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Moscow, St Petersburg, and the catering is right up there with the best global standards. Business menus offer a choice of four dishes including a vegetarian option, preceded by an appetiser, salad, soup and an excellent fresh bread selection. There is a proper dessert trolley with fresh fruit and an international cheese selection. But, says Peter Foster: “Even on our short domestic routes, a hot meal is expected. We are getting a lot of passengers that used to use the train to move around Kazakhstan. There is now more and more disposable income. This is a rich country. It has the world’s third largest known reserves of oil as well as minerals. There are only


“The results of the catering team’s hard work are now showing through as surveys show passenger satisfaction has doubled for food quality and service while costs have been reduced”


16 million people. Standards are going up, and we are well up the Skytrax rankings and are now officially best CIS airline.” Currently, the 22-strong fleet includes B767 and 757s, Airbus 321/320/319s, and Fokker 50s, soon to be replaced by Embraer 190s: the airline is targeting a total of 34 aircraft by 2014, including some new A320s and B787s.


56 www.onboardhospitality.com


Air Astana onboard: right up there with the best


On the catering side, the progress is down to manager catering and logistics Graham Hobbs and his team, comments Peter Foster. “When I arrived here, as I said, the food was really not that good, and in the time he has been here Graham has really turned things around. The results are now showing through after all his hard work: since May 09 our surveys show passenger satisfaction levels have doubled for food quality and service, while costs have been reduced.” To understand the scale of Graham’s task, you


need to know that he is working in an increasingly demanding and sophisticated market, but without most of the elements other caterers take for granted. “There are not many places like this left, and that is why I love the challenge of developing something virtually from scratch,” says Graham. “It could not be more different from most of the rest of the world, or more fun.” When he joined in 2005 he found caterers in seven locations nationwide. All of these are independently


operated with widely differing methods, and were at first not necessarily geared to the needs of a modern inflight catering operation. In Almaty, the ACS kitchen was, and is, the main focus for international flights, the kitchen serving around 5000 meals a day to Air Astana and the other domestic and international carriers at the airport. Among them are bmi, Lufthansa, Asiana, China Southern, Etihad, Turkish, KLM and Austrian. At the kitchen in the new capital, Air Astana also caters some international flights, and as the economy grows, so will international business at some other stations. For the flight kitchens in Kazakhstan, availability


of products that would be taken for granted elsewhere is not guaranteed. They cannot call on any pre-prepared convenience ingredients, so everything is done from scratch. This includes bakery and patisserie, including quiches for vegetarian and breakfast menus, and wrap sandwiches for reheating on board. Gradually the existing skills in each of the kitchens have been honed and adapted by Graham and his team, and


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116