Taxi @ Almaty airport: Q&A

[kaoru]

Hello. I'm flying into Almaty Airport in the night arriving around 10PM. It seems so many travelers end up riding scam taxi as they can't find Ecotaxi, and scam taxi sometimes charge them hefty 30,000tg...

How can I avoid the case? If anyone advice me the best way to the Almaty city center from the airport in the night, I would really appreciate it.

TIA

kaoru

[Milad]

Use Yandex Taxi.

[unborderedlife]

Second vote for Yandex Taxi. Otherwise, you can contact your hotel/hostel in advance and see if they offer pickups. Most should be willing to do so for around US$10.

[AreWeThereYet?]

I've flown into Almaty at fairly stupid hours (having been there 4 times I still haven't seen the airport in the light of day) and since my phone's too stupid to have most apps I just relied on the most reliable-looking taxi booths inside the airport. Every time I paid the lady at the booth and paid a fairly decent fare, 4-5000 tenge if I'm not mistaken.

[steven]

Yandex Taxi should be around 2500 tenge currently, via the booth around 3000 tenge I hear Saule saying.

[hoodmulti]

I used Uber at 1am before at the airport and it cost 2800...
Yandex seems to have more taxi, but uber taxi seems more comfortable and higher quality

[steven]

It is actually the same company: https://yandex.com/company/blog/yandex-uber/

[kaoru]

Thank you guys!
Installed Yandex.taxi app beforehand and it worked well!

[nazomauve]

Be careful, the scam taxi drivers at Almaty airport were really persistent, they waited in front of the arrival exit, and anytime a tourist showed up with luggage, they would follow you everywhere! We went upstairs (departure area) to shake them off & afterward came down again looking for the taxi booth. It was right next to the SIM card area near the escalator, in case someone was looking for it like we did. We took a taxi from the booth for 5000 Tenge.

[tapacharya]

The taxi booth doesn't seem to be any good. To get to a hotel in the center, the booth quoted 8K tenge. This was at around 4:30pm. The hotel had warned me that I shouldn't pay more than 3K. After talking to a number of other drivers, I finally got hold of Yandex Go and paid 4500 tenge for the ride. I don't know if it was unusual traffic, but it took an hour