My First SCAT Experience: Xi’an to Almaty on a Retro Boeing 737-500
Disclaimer
I took this flight in August 2017 and I am now re-uploading this as a result of moving blogs. As of November 2024, SCAT Airlines continues to operate services and has modernised its fleet and expanded its route network. The airline continues to operate a small number of Boeing 737 Classics, however, the bulk of its Boeing 737 fleet now takes the form of Boeing 737-800s and Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The airline no longer operates between Almaty and Xi’an, with this route now flown by China Southern Airlines with the Boeing 737-800.
Background
As part of my undergraduate degree in the UK, I was required to spend the second year of my university course in Korea, studying at a university in Seoul. Following an exciting year during which I managed to squeeze in plenty of travel and even scored a pair of flights on the rare Chinese-manufactured Xian MA60 turboprop airliner, it was time to return to London to commence the penultimate year of my degree. Not being all too happy to leave Korea and having saved up some cash, I decided to spread my return journey over the course of five days, making stops in Beijing, Xi’an, Almaty, Astana and Minsk, before touching down in London Gatwick on a Belavia Boeing 737-500, thereby ending my adventure. Furthermore, this itinerary would enable me to catch two sectors onboard an Antonov An-24, alongside the increasingly rare Fokker 100.
Initially, I had planned to fly from Beijing to Almaty with Kazakhstan’s highly regarded national carrier, Air Astana, flying on either an Airbus A321 or a Boeing 757-200. However, upon undertaking some research I discovered that Kazakhstan’s second largest airline, SCAT Airlines, connects Xi’an with Almaty. Deploying its short and stubby ageing Boeing 737-500 jets on this 1,804-mile route, this was the perfect opportunity to sample an increasingly rare jet on what was perhaps the longest sector operated by the type anywhere in the world!
As soon as I found out about this option, I headed to SCAT Airlines’ website to investigate this further. Despite being a large name in Kazakhstan, outside of the Central Asian state, awareness of the carrier is all but non-existent. Unsurprisingly given SCAT Airlines’ limited international route network, I found the airline’s website to be a little dated in its design. However, on the plus side, this was quick to load and provided passengers with absolutely everything they needed to know about the airline including its history, aircraft, destinations and virtually anything else you can think of. Fortunately, the website’s functionality also extended to its booking engine and I was able to go through all the steps from searching for flights to payment quickly and without any issues. Being a full-service airline, no optional extras were offered, whilst there was no option to pre-select seats. Almost immediately after I had made payment, I received four emails from Russian travel agency Sirena Travel on behalf of SCAT Airlines. These included two copies of my itinerary, a receipt and a guide regarding my ticket conditions. At that time, online check-in for SCAT Airlines’ international services was not possible and so I had little option other than to check in at the airport.
A Bit About SCAT
Despite being an airline that few are likely to be aware of outside of Kazakhstan, SCAT Airlines is a well-established carrier that commenced operators in 1997. According to the airline’s website, seventeen people formed the airline in the city of Shymkent. This dedicated group filled various wide-ranging roles and even, as the website claims even ‘painted the aircraft themselves’. The airline operated its first scheduled flight in 1998 between Almaty and Kyzylorda. Since then the airline continued to grow and at the time of my flight offered flights to destinations across Kazakhstan, also serving Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, Georgia, Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan with a fleet of Antonov 24s, Boeing 737s (300/500/700), Boeing 757-200s, Boeing 767-300s and Bombardier CRJ-200s. SCAT Airlines’ weekly service to Xi’an commenced operation in March 2016 and as of summer 2017, it departs Almaty at 1000 on a Thursday, arriving at 1615 before departing an hour later and arriving back in Almaty at 2010, 4H55 later.
The Journey
On the morning of my flight to Kazakhstan, I touched down in Xi’an at 0900 onboard a China Southern Airlines Airbus A321 operated service from Beijing. Having missed two nights’ sleep, by this time I was shattered and whilst I would have the best part of a day in Shaanxi’s capital, I decided against paying a visit to the city’s terracotta warriors. Instead, I checked myself in for a five-hour stay at the Regal Hotel which is conveniently connected to the terminal’s check-in hall by a footbridge. Priced at 100 yuan per hour, my 500 yuan bill was almost as much as I would pay for a three-night stay at a hotel near Almaty Airport!
Following a restful stay, I checked out of the fancy hotel with a little over three hours until my flight was scheduled to depart for Almaty. After a short walk I reached the terminal’s large check-in area, and, once in the international portion of this, unsurprisingly check-in was yet to open for SCAT Airlines’ service to Almaty. Instead, most check-in desks there were busy processing passengers bound for Hong Kong on Cathay Dragon’s late afternoon service. Thus, I decided to pass the time by wandering around the modern and spacious terminal. During my short stay, I found this to be clean, well-polished, bright and airy, thereby leaving me with no complaints whatsoever. Meanwhile, this also contained plenty of shops, cafés and other eateries. Finally as is often not the case at Chinese airports, I was pleased to find that despite not having a Chinese phone number, I was able to use the airport’s complimentary wifi network for the duration of my stay without any issue.
With a little over two hours to go until departure, those bound for Hong Kong had fizzled out and been replaced by passengers speaking in Kazakh and Russian thereby reassuring me that I was in the right place! At 1510, the screens above three of the check-in desks began to display SCAT Airlines’ propeller-inspired logo beneath which Almaty was displayed in Chinese characters. Almost as soon as this appeared, despite the lack of any check-in staff, a reasonably orderly line of passengers formed in anticipation of the opening of check-in. Twenty minutes later, several staff members appeared and spent the next fifteen minutes chatting away as they fired up the system and prepared to check passengers in. Providing some entertainment, as I waited I watched a random middle-aged man who was neither a staff member nor bound for Almaty walk up to one of the desks and without saying a word, stepped onto the luggage belt and looked downwards to check their weight before giving themselves an approving nod and wandering off! During this time, all three staff members appeared to pause their conversation in disbelief.
Eventually, all three desks opened and check-in commenced. Despite the fact that many of my fellow passengers seemed to be pushing the limits of SCAT Airlines’ complimentary luggage allowance and were complete trolleys with Khan Tengri-like piles of bags and boxes, the check-in agents worked quickly and efficiently, with the queue moving along at a reasonable pace. No more than five minutes after check-in commenced, I walked up to the desks where I handed over my passport and a printed version of my ticket before requesting a window seat. Gauging by the check-in agent’s reaction when I handed over my British passport and the demographics of those waiting to check-in, it appeared that few passengers who are neither Chinese nor Kazakhstani fly on SCAT Airlines’ route between Xi’an and Almaty. After some quick typing, the polite yet quiet agent handed me a Xi’an Airport branded ‘first class’ boarding pass, revealing that I had been assigned Seat 16F. This was perfect for me and would have perhaps been the seat that I would have selected had I had the ability to do this during the booking process.
Having no reason whatsoever to remain landside, I followed signs for international departures where I passed through customs before heading onwards to immigration. Despite the limited number of immigration desks, with no passengers in front of me, I was able to walk straight up to a counter. Once I handed over my passport, I received a barrage of suspicious looks from the tough-looking immigration officer before my passport was firmly stamped and returned. Afterwards, I was subject to the usual thorough comprehensive security screening before I was free to explore the sights of the international departure area.
Seeing as the flight to Kazakhstan was the only international departure for some time, the airside portion of the terminal was quiet and calm, and, save for those heading off on SCAT Airlines, was almost totally empty for the duration of my stay. As with the landside area, this part of the terminal appeared to be spotlessly clean and an army of cleaners could be seen working hard for the duration of my stay. Despite this, facilities were limited to just a few shops and eateries, so I would advise those looking to grab a full meal before their flight to do so before heading airside. However, saving myself for SCAT Airlines’ culinary delights, this was no major issue for me.
For aviation enthusiasts, large clean windows at the far end of the concourse offered a good view of the near-constant stream of both arriving and departing aircraft. As is usually the case at China’s regional airports, the majority of aircraft movements appeared to primarily consist of Airbus A320s and Boeing 737-800s alongside the occasional widebody. In addition to these several Bombardier CRJ-700s operated by China Express Airlines could be seen heading off to some of the region’s smaller cities.
Looking outside, at 1618 the short and stubby Boeing 737-500 that would haul me across to Kazakhstan touched down after its relatively long flight from Almaty before pulling into Stand 704 a short time later. This particular aircraft took the form of Lithuanian registered Boeing 737-522, LY-AWE, and would later join the Kazakhstani register as UP-B3723. Assembled at Boeing’s plant in Renton, this aircraft first took to the skies of Washington State in late October 1992, making it almost 25 years old at the time of my flight in August 2017. In December that year, the aircraft was delivered to United Airlines where it worked for twelve years before heading north of the border to commence flying for the now-defunct low cost carrier CanJet in 2004. After four years of shuttling holidaymakers from cold climes of Canada to the sunny Caribbean, the aircraft was flown across to Europe where it began to fly for Lithuania’s long-defunct national airline, FlyLAL. Three months before the airline’s bankruptcy, in November 2008 the aircraft once again headed eastwards to begin a new life with SCAT Airlines where it has remained ever since, ferrying up to 124 passengers in an all-economy class configuration. Prior to my flight, according to the AvHerald, this particular jet had suffered from two notable incidents, both whilst flying in Kazakhstan and involving false unsafe nose gear indications. The first occurred in 2011 in Almaty and the second in 2014 in Astana. In the week prior to my flight, LY-AWE travelled over 28,000 miles, undertaking 42 flights, making visits to Aktau, Almaty, Astana, Kostanay, Mineralnye Vody, Oskemen and Shymkent.
Spending the time by looking out of the window at the stream of movements outside and making the most of the airport’s free wifi, before I knew it 1700 arrived, however with no staff members present at the gate, it appeared that boarding would not commence on time. Looking outside, once the aircraft had taken on fuel for its flight back to Almaty, there were few signs of life around the aircraft bar several ground workers getting some respite from the hot sun by standing under the Boeing 737’s wing. Meanwhile, worryingly for anyone with expensive chocolate in their suitcases, several open luggage carts could be seen baking under the sun. Ten minutes later, these carts were pushed up to the aircraft and the ground crew began to load these into the aircraft one-by-one without the assistance of a belt loaded. At our scheduled departure time of 1715 a tug showed up and manoeuvred into position before boarding was called in Mandarin and English inside the terminal.
Following a short queue, my passport was checked and my boarding pass was scanned before I was free to make my way down the almost totally windowless and winding jetway before making it to the L1 door of the little Boeing 737. Upon stepping into the forward galley, I was hit by a wall of heat and received no greeting from the flight attendant standing there who, understandably, was fanning themselves with a magazine! Within moments, I turned right and passed through the windbreak before entering the aircraft’s dated cabin. Inside, this featured old-school chunky leather-covered seats, separated by unusually large retro armrests, each of which came complete with its own ashtray. Meanwhile, providing the 1990s answer to mood lighting, slightly mismatched tones illuminated the cabin from above. Without pausing, I arrived at row sixteen where two neighbours could already be seen occupying the aisle and middle seat. However, seeing as the last four rows of the aircraft appeared to be blocked, after gesturing to the flight attendant standing in the rear galley, I was given permission to move back to Seat 19F. Thanks to the fact that the aircraft’s L2 door was open, a slight breeze could be felt and provided some respite from the boiling hot temperatures inside the aircraft. Once I had taken my seat, there was a slight frenzy as several other passengers attempted to move rearwards and I was soon joined by a fellow flyer in the aisle seat.
Examining the seat, I was pleased to find that whilst the legroom was somewhat mediocre, the seat itself was as comfortable as it looked. As one would perhaps expect from a relatively old aircraft, the cabin appeared to be in a very worn condition with scratches and marks all over the place. Furthermore, my window shade would only lower halfway and featured a large crack. With the aircraft hailing from an era where filling and expansive inflight meals were the norm, each tray table was large and sturdy. Unsurprisingly this featured no bells and whistles, lacking any form of inflight entertainment screen or sockets. Turning to the seatback pockets, these featured a copy of the airline’s bilingual Aspan inflight magazine – published in Kazakh and Russian, a battered safety card and a sick bag. That evening, whilst I did not count the number of passengers, I would estimate that the flight was approximately 60% full. Of those onboard, around 80% appeared to be from Kazakhstan and consisted primarily of families and university students returning from China. Aside from myself, the remaining passengers appeared to all hail from China and were travelling as part of a group.
Following a quick end to boarding, only fifteen minutes behind schedule, the two cabin doors were closed with an audible thud whilst the Purser performed a welcome speech in Kazakh, Russian and English. As this rang out, another crew member passed through the cabin with a basket of boiled sweets and at 1740 the cabin lights were turned off as pushback commenced. As the aircraft travelled backwards, the two CFMI CFM56-3C1 spooled up with plenty of noise and vibration before the flaps were extended with a loud whine. Once the two engines had spooled up, likely to everyone’s relief, cool air finally blurted out from the air conditioning vents up above. After a few minutes, the aircraft commenced a quick taxi over to Xi’an Airport’s Runway 05L. Once there, the aircraft paused for several minutes in order to allow for a Capital Airlines Airbus A320 and a Dalian Airlines Boeing 737-800 to land, and for a Sichuan Airlines Airbus A319 to rocket off ahead of us. During this wait, the Captain’s calm voice could be heard for the first time during the flight, politely requesting ‘cabin crew takeoff position please, thank you’ before the aircraft lumbered onto the runway.
Eleven minutes after pushback had commenced, at 1751, the Boeing’s two engines roared into life and the aircraft was catapulted down the runway, bumping and swaying a fair bit before eventually rotating upwards into the skies. Moments after taking to the skies, a fantastic bird’s eye view of sixteen stored Hainan Airlines and Tianjin Airlines Donier 328JETs could be seen below, a type retired from both airlines’ fleets eight years earlier in 2009. Interestingly, if my calculations are correct, this collection accounts for approximately 16% of the total number of Dornier 328JETs manufactured.
After our powerful departure, the Boeing made a shallow climb above the urban landscapes of Jingyang County that sits to the north of Xi’an before turning northwestwards just before reaching the small (by Chinese standards) city of Tongchuan. From there, the apartment blocks beneath the Boeing transformed into rural green hills, many of which were covered in impressive terrace farms creating scenic vistas as we crossed into the skies of Northern Ningxia before the clouds rolled in below.
Thirty minutes after taking off from Xi’an, the aircraft reached its cruising altitude of 34,000 feet at which point a loud ding could be heard as the seatbelt signs were extinguished. Indicating the swift commencement of the dinner service, almost immediately after levelling off, two service carts were rolled to the front of the cabin. At 1830, the first of these reached my row near the rear of the aircraft and I opted for a sugary, bright orange Fanta. This was poured into a colourful SCAT Airlines branded paper cup that ended up being filled dangerously to the brim before being passed over to me. Fortunately for the passenger in the aisle seat, no sudden turbulence occurred and this reached my tray table without any spillages. Turning my attention back outside, within fifteen minutes of the clouds rolling in beneath the aircraft, these opened up and revealed a completely different but equally spectacular landscape consisting of Gansu’s jagged sandy-coloured peaks to the east of Lanzhou.
By 1900 Chinese time, the aircraft hit its first patch of turbulence. This turned out to be fairly significant, yet despite this, the crew continued with the meal service. As with those meals served on most Chinese domestic flights, this consisted of a cardboard box containing several side dishes that accompanied a foil dish containing the main meal. After being handed both of these in a rather cool manner, I was then passed two unpackaged bread rolls – a white bread roll and a soft brown one. Examining the contents of the cardboard box, this contained a beef salad, a fruit salad and a muffin alongside some packaged plastic cutlery. Meanwhile, the main hot dish took the form of a simple prawn, vegetable and rice dish. Overall, I found this meal to be sufficient for the length of the flight and of decent quality, thereby leaving me with no complaints.
As I dined, the orange sand dunes of the remote Inner Mongolian Gobi Desert could be seen passing below, leading me to soon conclude that this flight was one of the more scenic journeys that I had taken through Chinese skies. After flying north for some time, the Boeing banked to the left and turned to fly west, journeying along just to the south of the Mongolian border and over the Banner of Ejin. Below, I caught sight of a large turquoise oasis in the middle of the sandy landscapes below before this faded away, with few signs of life visible below for quite some time.
Back inside the cabin, the lack of any sort of inflight entertainment other than the airline’s inflight magazine meant that many passengers fell asleep bar the three passengers seated behind me who appeared to be travelling as part of the larger group. Rather than sleeping, these passengers passed the time by loudly playing the latest Chinese pop songs without headphones before watching the first ten minutes of a Korean drama. Three hours following the flight’s departure, I decided to head to the rear galley to pay a visit to one of the two lavatories there. These are laid out in a rather unusual style, with the doors facing one another diagonally. As one would expect from this retro aircraft, these lavatories were old-fashioned in their design and proved to be disappointingly dirty and worn, complete with a pool of what I hoped was water on the floor!
After an hour spent trundling over the sandy desert, the scenery beneath the aircraft rose upwards and transformed into the grey rocky mountains of Eastern Xinjiang, soon followed by the endless sight of rows and rows of wind turbines. Eventually, the Boeing 737 reached the city of Hami, home to over 650,000 residents and famous for its sweet melons. Beyond the city, the jagged snow-capped peaks of the Karlik Mountains could be seen. Seeing as I was rather tired by this point, I closed my eyes and woke up fifty minutes later to find that the landscape had changed once again, this time taking the form of a cultivated desert to the north of Turpan – a town I had been fortunate enough to visit the year before this flight.
As we neared Urumqi, I caught sight of an aircraft whizzing past in the opposite direction, with this taking the form of an Air China Airbus A320. A short time later, the impressive peaks of the snowcapped Tianshan Mountains appeared, with these providing a natural border between China and Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, the bright evening sunlight and the plentiful marks and scratches on the window meant that getting any decent photos of these was a near-impossible task.
Whilst the flight was nearly five hours long, following the pre-dinner drinks offering, no further drinks were offered to passengers during the flight. However, upon entering Kazakhstani airspace I decided to make another trip to the bathroom and as I waited in the rear galley one of the flight attendants asked me if there was anything that I needed. By the time that I returned to my seat, the sun was setting and our scheduled arrival time of 2010 soon rolled around. Despite this, the aircraft was still cruising at 36,000 feet and following the winding course of the Ile River. Five minutes later, the seatbelt signs were reilluminated and an announcement was made informing all onboard of the commencement of our descent which was followed by the usual requests regarding seatbelts, seatbacks, tray tables and window shades. By the time this announcement reached its end, the aircraft could be felt sinking towards earth and the crew passed through the cabin collecting rubbish as well as the blankets that they had given out to those who had requested these. A short time later, as the aircraft neared Almaty the large Kapchagay Reservoir came into view and the crew passed through the cabin with boiled sweets.
Within minutes, the rural landscapes below were replaced by the orange lights of factories, towns and villages at which point the flaps were partially extended. At 7000 feet, the aircraft made a 180-degree turn to put the aircraft on course for a straight-in approach to Runway 05L. This was rather appropriate given the fact that we had departed from Runway 05L in Xi’an! As the aircraft banked, the tall mountains to the south of Almaty came into view as did the city itself before the landing gear was extended and full flaps selected. For the second time during the flight, as our aircraft neared the airport, the Captain’s voice could be heard, announcing ‘cabin crew landing stations’.
At 2038 Almaty time, the Boeing 737 made an incredibly smooth landing that could barely be felt although the harsh braking would have most definitely proven strong enough to wake up any passengers that slept through the landing. After slowing down, the aircraft made a U-turn on the runway before making a speedy backtrack. As we vacated the runway an impressive array of active, stored and retired Antonov, Ilyushin, Tupolev and Yakovlev turboprops and jets could be seen outside serving as a reminder that I had just touched down in a former Soviet country!
From there the aircraft taxied past several less interesting and far more modern Air Astana aircraft before pulling up to a remote stand alongside a fellow SCAT Airlines Boeing 737-500 that had arrived from Astana. As soon as the engines were shut down the cabin plunged into darkness before the emergency lights came on, creating a small amount of light in the aisle. A minute or so later the APU could be heard powering into life and the main cabin lights were turned back on, however, this didn’t last long as the APU almost immediately fell silent and the cabin fell entirely dark once again. Several minutes after arriving on stand stand, the main cabin door was opened and with the aid of mobile phone torches, one-by-one passengers retrieved their belongings, made their way up the cabin and disembarked before heading onto the waiting buses.
Seeing as I had been sitting at the rear of the cabin, almost immediately after I climbed onto one of the buses, the doors of this closed and the bus soon took us past a couple of resting Bek Air Fokker 100s and the Soviet-era VIP terminal before arriving at the main door for international arrivals. Considering that Almaty Airport is one of Kazakhstan’s main two international gateways, the immigration hall was far smaller than I had expected. Seeing as I had not received an immigration form onboard, I headed over to a circular table to pick one of these up and fill it in before joining a queue leading up to one of the immigration counters. After several minutes I reached the counter and once there it was clear that the officer did not speak much English and kept repeating the word ‘today’ in a question-like manner. Unsure of what he meant by this I showed him my tickets out of Kazakhstan and a while later my passport was stamped before I officially entered Kazakhstan. By the time I had made it through immigration, my bag was already spinning around and so after picking this up, I entered the busy arrivals hall where I changed some money into Kazakhstani Tenge before walking to the old yet convenient airport hotel.
Summary
When I booked the flight, I knew full well that I would be travelling on an old and likely battered aircraft without the luxury of inflight entertainment, all of which proved to be the case. For those more used to flying on the world’s major legacy carriers, or Kazakhstan’s national airline, Air Astana, the SCAT Airlines experience may have come as a bit of a shock. However, all in all, I did not have too much to complain about. The food was decent, the aircraft was fairly comfortable and whilst the crew may have seemed a little cold, they were there for passengers when requested.
Would I fly medium haul with SCAT Airlines again? Yes, I probably would especially if the price was right. However perhaps if another more reputable full-service airline, say, Air Astana offered the same flight for a similar price then perhaps I would be more compelled to fly with them, especially if I didn’t care about the type of aircraft operating this service.
