Silk Way West Airlines is looking to Central Asia as its next growth engine
- Central Asia is emerging as a key growth region for air freight, with freight volumes rising by almost 40 percent from 1.8 million tons in 2020 to 2.5 million tons in 2024, driven by cross-border e-commerce, high-value goods, and reconfigured supply chains following the closure of Russian airspace.
- Silk Way West Airlines has shifted focus, with Central Asia sales growing from 29% to 45% between 2022 and 2024, strengthening leadership in Azerbaijan and expanding into China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia, while maintaining long-term growth plans in Gulf markets to achieve scale and stability.
- The region’s growth is supported by new airport infrastructure in Baku, Almaty and Tashkent, multimodal transport corridors, liberalization of air rights, and the rise of e-commerce, although challenges remain in fragmented infrastructure, volatile fuel prices, and the need for digital transformation in cargo handling.
Central Asia has long been viewed as a marginal market for air cargo, overshadowed by the Gulf region and major Eurasian hubs. But geopolitical shifts and new infrastructure are changing this dynamic. For Silk Way West Airlines, the region is no longer secondary – it is quickly becoming central to its growth strategy.
Market is on the rise
Air freight traffic through Central Asia expanded by about 40 percent in just four years. “Air cargo traffic in the region has grown steadily and significantly from 1.8 million tons in 2020 to 2.5 million tons by 2024,” said Fugar Mammadov, Vice President of CIS, Central Asia and Turkey at Silk Way West Airlines.
This growth is fueled by cross-border e-commerce, rising demand for high-value goods, and the reconfiguration of supply chains due to the closure of Russian airspace. “Geopolitically, the region lies at the intersection of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, providing a strategic connection for trade between east and west and between north and south,” he added.
This strategic location is now being enhanced through new infrastructure. Investments in airports in Baku, Almaty and Tashkent create the capacity to handle higher volumes and more specialized cargo flows. Multimodal corridors – linking road, rail, sea and air – are also beginning to link together.
“These fundamentals position the region as a prime destination for long-term investment in logistics, warehousing and distribution facilities,” Mammadov said, pointing to the role of transportation in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan’s trade and consumption base as evidence that the market is moving beyond its traditional function.
Shifts in the Silk Road portfolio
The airline’s performance reflects this transformation. In 2022, Central Asia accounted for 29 percent of Silk Way West’s sales. By 2024, this number has risen to 45 percent. “This 60% increase in just two years demonstrates the region’s contribution to our profitability and the effectiveness of our focus on high-potential trade corridors,” Mammadov said.
Silk Way West has consolidated its market leadership in Azerbaijan and has built strong positions in China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia. Its presence in the Gulf region – in markets such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – remains more modest, but the airline sees these opportunities as long-term opportunities for expansion.
Mammadov described a dual approach: consolidating dominance in smaller, fast-growing Central Asian markets while steadily expanding into the Gulf region for scale and stability. “Central Asia is emerging as the next driver of air cargo growth, while the Gulf provides the scale and stability to anchor regional networks,” he said.
This strategy recognizes that while Gulf centers dominate global flows, Central Asia offers flexibility, proximity to China, and the ability to access new trade corridors. For an airline like Silk Way West, which operates a fleet of wide-body freighters across the continents, the combination of these advantages is key to its positioning.
Mammadov stressed that transformation is not only about location, but about structural change. Liberalization of aviation rights, investment in handling facilities, and the rise of e-commerce are all transforming what was once a secondary theater into a major market. “The fundamentals are in place for long-term growth,” he added.
But the region also faces obstacles: fragmented infrastructure, volatile fuel prices, and the need for greater digitalization in cargo handling. The ability of airports and air carriers in Central Asia to support growth will depend on how quickly these challenges are addressed.
The Western Silk Road’s regional bet reflects a broader trend. Airlines, freight forwarders and investors are increasingly treating Central Asia as a logistics corridor in its own right rather than an appendage of Russia or the Gulf. If current growth rates continue, investment volumes in the region could double again before the end of the decade.
For Mammadov, the trend is clear. “Geography has always been our advantage, but the ecosystem is now catching up,” he said. “The next phase is about building scale and resilience – and Central Asia will be at the heart of this phase.”
