The regional airport is owned by the state, and its financial condition matters to everyone who depends on air links with Pavlodar Region. The reports of JSC "Pavlodar Airport" show that in 2025 the airport's revenue fell by 61.3%, while its net loss narrowed. The reason lies in other income. Admittedly, the reports do not disclose what exactly this income consists of. Let us examine what lies behind the figures and what they do not say.
WHAT THE FIGURES SHOW
In 2023, the revenue of JSC "Pavlodar Airport" amounted to KZT 412.5 million, in 2024 it rose to 430.2 million, and in 2025 it fell to 166.5 million. The cost of services rose to 760.8 million in 2024 and fell to 578.7 million in 2025. Thus, revenue covered the cost of services by 75.3% in 2023, by 56.5% in 2024 and by only 28.8% in 2025.
Administrative expenses amounted to 82.6 million, 130.5 million and KZT 99 million. Subtracting them from the gross result gives a loss from core operations: 217.9 million, 461 million and 511.2 million.
WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM: OTHER INCOME AND FINANCIAL INFLOWS
The net loss, meanwhile, turned out to be far smaller: 55.9 million (2023), 106.6 million (2024), 39.5 million (2025). The gap is closed by other income: 162.8 million, 351.9 million and 484.2 million. In 2025 it covered 94.7% of the loss from core operations and was 2.9 times higher than revenue. The reports do not disclose what this income includes.
However, the cash flow statements contain a flow that is worth keeping an eye on. The "other proceeds" line under financing activities shows 111.9 million (2023), 245 million (2024) and KZT 378 million (2025). The reports do not say whether these flows match the other income.
LIQUIDITY
Operating cash flow has been negative for three years running: -275.7 million, -449.2 million and -385.9 million, a total of -KZT 1.11 billion. The deficit was covered by external inflows. In 2023 these were a share issue of 200 million (share capital then rose from 1.61 billion to 1.81 billion), loans of 178 million and other proceeds.
The cash balance at the end of 2023 stood at 219.8 million, fell to 11 million at the end of 2024 and to KZT 1 million at the end of 2025. The current liquidity ratio, that is the ratio of current assets to short-term liabilities, was 0.92 at the end of 2023, 0.44 at the end of 2024 and 0.32 at the end of 2025. A value below one means that short-term debts are greater than the assets that can be quickly converted into cash.
The notes to the 2023 report claim the opposite, however: highly liquid assets allegedly exceed short-term liabilities. Admittedly, the balance sheet figures do not bear this out: current assets stood at 362 million, liabilities at 394.3 million.
WHAT THE NOTES CONCEAL: ADVANCES, LIABILITIES AND CONSTRUCTION
Accounts payable rose from 78.5 million (end of 2022) to 326.3 million (end of 2023), and by the end of 2025 had fallen to 55 million. In 2024 the largest creditor was LLP "Pavlodarenergosbyt" (50 million).
Advances received at the end of 2025 amounted to KZT 64.7 million. Of these, 49.6 million relate to LLP "Kurylys Group RK" and 6.5 million to LLP "KURYLYS GSU", that is 86.6% of the total. Both figures match the data at the end of 2024 to the tenge. The reports do not state the reasons for this unchanged position.
Long-term liabilities reached KZT 311 million (298.3 million in 2023). The balance sheet calls them financial, whereas the accounting policy in the 2024 and 2025 notes classifies gratuitously received assets as deferred income.
Construction in progress under the modernisation and major repair project rose from 67 million (2023) to 138.4 million (2024) and 165.2 million (2025). At the same time, there are no payments in the investing section of the cash flow statements for 2024 and 2025.
ERRORS AND INCONSISTENCIES IN THE DOCUMENTS
Some of the discrepancies are small in amount but telling as to the quality of accounting. In the 2023 report, equity in the balance sheet is stated as 909.7 million, while in the notes it is 909.2 million. Other current assets are shown as 13.1 million and 12.6 million respectively. In the 2024 report, "other expenses" appear in brackets as (2.5 million), that is as a negative value, but the total loss of (106.6 million), or -106.6 million, only reconciles if this amount is added rather than subtracted. In the 2025 report, the comparative balance sheet total for 2024 equals 1.3825 billion, whereas the asset lines give 1.3828 billion, as in the 2024 report itself.
The textual explanations also diverge from the tables. In the 2024 explanatory note, the outflow from operating activities is stated as 1.048 billion, while in the cash flow statement itself it is 1.061 billion. In the 2025 explanatory note it is stated as 672.7 million, in the table 664.7 million. The 2024 explanatory note explains the financial flows by deductions from the previous year's net profit and material assistance to executives, even though the company was loss-making, while the report for that year shows an inflow of 245 million.
Recall that FBRK previously examined the reports of JSC "Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport" for 2024. There the auditor refused to vouch for 80% of assets, the airport lost a court case to the state for KZT 395.4 million, and the difference between the amount of the debt and its present value due to the instalment plan was recorded as income.
We soon analysed the reports of JSC "Almaty International Airport". For three years running the airport's reports have shown revenue growth, but a line-by-line comparison of the reports for 2023, 2024 and 2025 reveals not merely growth but a set of details that migrate from document to document unchanged, including the wording about an expired licence and the amount of the liability for the construction of the new terminal, which has remained frozen at a single value while the terminal itself has already been built and opened.
In the reports of JSC "Khiuaz Dospanova International Airport", our editorial team discovered a recurring error in the calculation of earnings per share and inconsistencies in the notes to the reports, which Atyrau Airport later acknowledged and promised to correct in its next reports.
FBRK also examined the financial statements of JSC "Shymkent Airport", where over three years revenue grew almost fivefold, although the company's net profit over the same period not only failed to grow proportionally but collapsed to fractions of a percent of revenue. And in the notes to the latest reports there are figures that do not reconcile with each other within the same document.
The same three reporting years for JSC "Aliya Moldagulova International Airport" in Aktobe turned out to be entirely different in financial result. The company went through a net loss and an auditor's qualification, then through a sharp jump in profit and the emergence of borrowed funds, and then through an increase in capital of almost half a billion tenge.
In turn, JSC "Sary-Arka Airport" over three years grew in turnover, but not in the quality of its result. There, a profit of 373 million in 2023 turned into a loss of 1.05 billion in 2025, because the cost of services grew several times faster than revenue.
And the reports of JSC "Aktau International Airport" showed that, with revenue growing, the airport's financial results remain unstable. Profits of previous years were largely ensured by tax effects, and in 2025 the company ended the year with a loss.
