Experiences traveling on Scat Airlines

"... have some reservations about its safety."

Rightly so ... even my relatives here refuse to use it, preferring to drive 700km if that is the only other alternative ... it is black-listed by the EU authorities for good reason.

I also yes scat a lot and their flights can be booked online. So far my trips have been ok and I have noticed a lot of the pilots are either british or speak good English.
There is a move by the Kazakhstan government to reintroduce Kazakhstan airways as a competitor to air Astana. I believe they are in the process of buying the aircraft.
As far as scat is concerned they mainly use Canadian regional jets which are functional and comfortable.

Several flights on SCAT, never an issue. Even went to Taraz once on an AN-24. My maiden flight to KZ was on Yak 42D back in the day. Now, those old Soviet planes did make me a bit nervous but the CJs are relatively modern and again, my personal experiences which are at least a dozen or more flights have been fine. If possible, I do fly Air Astana but sometimes SCAT is the only option.

I find this to be one of the things that opinions are going to really differ on, a experienced expat that I know won't set foot on either companies aircraft. I fly both regularly.

Air Astana is 49% owned by BAE and I think a European carrier even handles their maintenance department, maybe Lufthansa? As mentioned in this thread, Air Astana is cleared for European air space, SCAT is not, same for Bek air and a couple others.

I can tell you the safety department at a large international oil company in KZ that my relative works at allows employees to fly on SCAT Boeing and CJ aircraft but not the Soviet Antonov and Yak ones.