MOSCOW, January 9. /TASS/: Aeroflot airline announced that it has stopped selling tickets for flights to Kazakhstan scheduled before January 20.
Sales of tickets for flights scheduled from Kazakhstan to Russia until January 21 have also been halted. The carrier also canceled all its own flights from Moscow to Kazakhstan until January 10, and from Kazakhstan to Russia until January 11.
"Aeroflot is in constant operational interaction with the Federal Air Transport Agency and the Russian Foreign Ministry on the restoration of air traffic from/to the republic of Kazakhstan, "the company says.
Aeroflot began canceling flights to Kazakhstan from January 5.
"At the moment, passengers of canceled flights are offered a forced refund at the place of payment for carriage. Aeroflot also proposes to reschedule transportations from/to Kazakhstan once, if it covers the period from January 5 to January 20, 2022, to flights under the SU code on the same route and in the same class of service for any other dates, but within the validity period of the ticket, without any additional payments," the carrier said.
Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, escalating into mass riots with government buildings getting ransacked in several cities a few days later. The ensuing violence left scores of people injured, with fatalities also being reported. Subsequently, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev turned to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) requesting assistance from the Russia-led bloc. As a result, peacekeepers have already been deployed to Kazakhstan. Law and order, Kazakh authorities affirm, was restored to all of the country’s regions by the morning of January 7.
However, the situation remains tense in Almaty. Shootings are still being reported there, the security forces are conducting a special operation. The highest terror threat level has been introduced in the region. On January 5, Tokayev said at a meeting of the Security Council that terrorist groups had seized the Almaty airport and five planes, including foreign ones. Later, the airport was freed in a special operation.
