The ICAO Council is expanding from 36 to 40 seats: the 2016 Protocol amending Article 50(a) of the Chicago Convention entered into force on 12 June 2026 after ratification by the required number of states. Kazakhstan's Senate ratified the protocol along with a related amendment expanding the Air Navigation Commission from 19 to 21 members.
Kazakhstan's Vice Minister of Transport, Talgat Lastayev, said in March 2026 that the country intends to compete for one of the new seats: "Kazakhstan participates and will apply for a place in the Council, which will give us the opportunity to participate in the direct creation of international standards."
At the regular Council elections on 27 September 2025, 22 states were elected (Parts I and II) — Kazakhstan was not among them, since those seats belong to the existing 36. The four additional seats created by the expansion will instead be decided at the 43rd Extraordinary Session of the Assembly on 19-20 November 2026 in Montreal, held alongside ICAO's Seventh Worldwide Air Transport Conference.
Kazakhstan has been building toward this systematically: in July 2024, the country opened its first-ever Permanent Mission to ICAO in Montreal, with Timur Tlegenov presenting his credentials to Secretary General Juan Carlos Salazar. According to ICAO, Kazakhstan's aviation safety performance stands at 95.7%, ranking among the world's top 20.
If elected, Kazakhstan would become the first Central Asian country represented on the ICAO Council — the body that carries out the Assembly's decisions between sessions and plays a direct role in shaping international aviation standards.