In late May Embraer celebrated the entry into service of the first of two E190s with Air Astana, the national flag carrier of Kazakhstan, in a ceremony at the airline’s headquarters, in Almaty. The airline operates the airplane on a lease agreement from Florida’s Jetscape. Air Astana also signed a lease deal with Steven Udvar Hazy’s Air Lease Corp. for two more E-Jets, scheduled for delivery this year and next, and it continues to negotiate directly with Embraer for yet another two E190s.

Air Astana chose the E190–configured in a dual-class, 97-seat layout–to “right size” routes and fill a capacity gap between its Fokker and Airbus fleets. It plans to fly the jets on a mix of domestic and international city pairs from both Almaty and Astana.