Mr Rafael Taizhanov | Director - Commercial Planning
Air Astana | Kazakhstan

Rafael was born in 1972 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He graduated with distinction from the Physics Department of the Kazakh State University. He hold SMART MBA Diploma of the corporate university "Samruk-Kazyna" and IATA Diploma on Sales and Marketing.

Rafael has over 15 years of experience in the aviation industry, starting with his aviation experience in Air Kazakhstan in 1998 as an executive of the schedule planning. He also worked as a station Manager in Germany airports.

Rafael joined the Air Astana at its early stage of formation in 2002. He was appointed as Director Commercial Planning in 2014 and responsible for hub design, new markets identification, middle and long range market forecast, determining the optimal fleeting of the schedule, effective fleet utilization, scheduling, ad-hock changes and fleet planning.

He speaks Kazakh, Russian, English. He is married and his hobbies are football, fitness, street workout, and books.

Appearances coming up:

Day 1, 28 October 2014, Premium Conference

@ 13.30

Executive Discussions

Roundtable 1: Enhancing customer experience

How to develop a unique and consistent customer experience?
Assessing the risks and benefits of one-for-all vs. segmentized customer experience
Sharing case study on Cebu Pacific Air’s strategies in building a loyal passenger base

CONFIRMED: Josefina Ignacio , Director - Guest Experience & Innovation, Cebu Pacific Air

Roundtable 2: Route development

Asssessing the impact of the Gulf and Turkish carriers, as well as improvements in technology on airlines route development practices
What are the strategies for route development in considerartion of the over-capacity in LCC sector
Infrastructure challenges and potential solutions

CONFIRMED: Michael Burke , Assistant Director – Commercial, Hong Kong Airlines

Roundtable 3: Expansion and capacity planning

Identifying new markets and flying to the right destinations? How to deal with a particular route that does not grow or grow very slowly?
Determining the optimal fleeting of the schedule to maximise profitability: Which commercial tool for network planning is better?
Open sky opportunities: Assessing the opportunities and threats of unlimited multiple destinations.

CONFIRMED: Rafael Taizhanov , Director, Commercial Planning, Air Astana

Roundtable 4: The millennial generation