Sustained growth

Russian air traffic figures continue to grow, as witnessed by a recent Rosaviatsia Federal Air Transport Agency report. In January through August 2011, the number of passengers carried by Russian airlines increased by 12.3% year-on-year to reach 42.583 mln people.

A total of 20.92 mln passengers were carried on international routes, 12.9% up on the 18.53 mln transported in the first eight months of 2010. Services between Russia and CIS countries saw a 41.7% increase (3.29 mln against 2.32 mln during the same period last year); between Russia and farther abroad, there were 8.8% more passengers (17.629 mln against 16.209 mln). There were 21.663 mln domestic passengers, which is 11.8% more than last year’s 2.322 mln.

Passenger traffic grew by 13.2%, from 97.166 bln passenger kilometers to 109.983 bln. The seat load factor, however, lost 1.5 percentage points to 77.4%, and the revenue load factor dipped by 1.9 percentage points to 65.1%.

The leading airlines for the number of passengers carried were Aeroflot, Transaero Airlines, UTair Aviation, S7 Airlines, and Rossiya. These carriers together transported 23.996 mln passengers, or 56.4% of overall numbers, and their combined share in the eight-month passenger traffic amounted to 61.3% (67.396 bln passenger kilometres).

The same period saw 619,960 tons of freight and mail carried, indicating a year-on-year growth of 5.9%. In particular, freight traffic grew by 5% to 3.16 bln ton kilometers. AirBridgeCargo Airlines and Aeroflot led the top five of freight operators with a significant margin, followed by Volga-Dnepr, Polet Airlines, and Transaero. The five best performers together carried 441,172 tons of freight and mail in the first eight months of 2011, accounting for 71.3% of the total Russian market.