Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Sary-Arka Airport (UAKK/KGF) is the international gateway for Karaganda in central Kazakhstan, sited some 24 km southeast of the city on the open steppe. It combines a busy civil terminal with a resident fast-jet military base, and its single long concrete runway has also served as a landing and staging point for returning International Space Station crews.
Sary-Arka Airport serves the city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan's fourth-largest city, and is operated by JSC "Sary-Arka International Airport" under owner Sky Service LLP. It is a mixed civil-military field: alongside scheduled passenger and cargo traffic it hosts the 610th Air Base of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan, one of only four fast-jet bases in the country, operating MiG-31, Su-27 and Su-25 types. The airport is also notable as a staging point from which returning Soyuz crewmembers are flown onward to training centres after landing on the Kazakh steppe, giving it an unusual place in human spaceflight history alongside its everyday role as a regional airline hub. For a simulator pilot, the combination of a very long hard-surfaced runway, ILS approach and steppe surroundings makes it an interesting waypoint for airliner or military-type operations in Central Asia.
The airport lies about 24 km (15 miles) southeast of Qaraghandy (Karaganda) in Qaraghandy Oblysy, Kazakhstan, at coordinates 49.6717N 73.3353E and an elevation of 1759 ft. Its dual role as a civil international airport and home to a Kazakhstani fast-jet air base means military traffic should be anticipated in the surrounding airspace alongside scheduled airline movements.
Sary-Arka has a single physical runway, 05/23, some 11,799 ft long with a hard (reinforced concrete) surface. It is lit and equipped with ILS, giving it the capacity to handle very large aircraft, including wide-body airliners and heavy freighters.
Radio contact is provided on APP 122 MHz and TWR 118.3 MHz. The runway is served by an ILS approach, supporting instrument operations to the field's single long runway.
The airport's origins go back to 1934, when an initial airfield was built on a site at the edge of Karaganda's city centre; the old terminal building on Shturman Street still stands today, now used as a bus terminal and car-parts market. The airfield was relocated further out to its current site in 1944. A major reconstruction in 1980 brought a new terminal building and a modernised runway, enabling heavier aircraft to operate and opening the field to new destinations across the Soviet Union. International status was granted in 1992, and the airport became an independent joint-stock company in 1997 following separation from JSC "Karagandaavia". The field is home to the Kazakhstani Armed Forces' 610th Air Base, one of the country's four fast-jet bases, flying MiG-31, Su-27 and Su-25 aircraft. It has also been used as a staging point for International Space Station crewmembers returning to Earth by Soyuz, from where they are flown on to training centres including the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, the Johnson Space Center or the European Astronaut Centre. Recorded incidents include the crash of a Li-2 near the airport in poor weather on 27 October 1959, and an emergency landing by a Cathay Pacific Boeing 747 on 29 November 2010 following cabin depressurisation while en route from Amsterdam to Hong Kong.
Sary-Arka today functions as an international airport handling scheduled passenger services (including operators such as Aeroflot, FlyArystan, S7 Airlines, SCAT Airlines and seasonal charter flights) as well as cargo operations. It continues to share its site with the Kazakhstani Air Force's 610th Air Base and its resident fast-jet units. The long, lit, ILS-equipped runway gives it the capacity to accept large wide-body aircraft and heavy freighters in addition to routine domestic and regional traffic.