Negative effect

The difficult political and economic situation is starting to affect the Russian bizav market. According to the German consultancy Wingx Advance, the number of business aviation flights into Russia and the CIS dropped 31% year-on-year in the first eight months of 2014. Bizav traffic between Russia and Europe dropped by 6% over the same period. In August alone, bizav activity shrank by nearly 17% compared to the same period in 2013. The crisis is also noticeable in Ukraine and Turkey (a drop of around 40%), as well as in all of Eastern and Central Europe.

Avinode, the world’s largest business charters booking platform, confirms that the number of requests for business travel from Russia and the CIS decreased by 5% year-on-year in the first eight months of 2014, while other regions of the world continued growing. In Europe, for example, the number of bizav charter bookings grew by 30% over the same period.

Georgy Sharov, CEO of Vnukovo 3, which is the largest business aviation center in Russia and the CIS, mentioned the market crisis back in early September, saying his company did not expect any operational growth because of the difficult political and economic circumstances. Another factor preventing Vnukovo 3 operations from expanding to other Russian regions is that bizav infrastructure is virtually non-existent in airports across the country, for the exception of Moscow’s three major airports and St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo.