SCAT Airlines has launched a new international route linking Shymkent in Kazakhstan with Sanya in southern China and Singapore.
The inaugural service landed at Sanya Phoenix International Airport on 20 October. The route is operated twice a week using a Boeing 737 Max 8 and is being operated under fifth-freedom traffic rights, allowing passengers to board and disembark in all three countries.
The service gives travellers in southern Kazakhstan a new link to both Hainan and Singapore, while allowing Sanya to position itself as a transit point between Central Asia and Southeast Asia. Sanya’s tourism board described the route as the city’s fourth fifth-freedom service.
The route also means that Almaty, Astana and Shymkent—all three Kazakh cities with populations of more than one million—now have direct air links to Sanya. The route could support both leisure travel and onward connections, particularly for passengers travelling between Central Asia and Southeast Asia.
According to figures cited by China News Service, bookings for October flights had already exceeded 85% of available capacity. Sanya recorded a roughly 45% year-on-year rise in inbound overnight visitors during the first nine months of 2026, while inbound tourism spending increased by about 67%. The city expects inbound arrivals to exceed 1.5 million this year.
The new link adds to Hainan’s growing international network and may help diversify the island’s visitor markets beyond its established Northeast Asian and domestic source markets. It also gives Singapore travellers a new route into southern Kazakhstan, although the service is not a non-stop flight between the two countries.
