As Rosaviatsia (the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency) previously confirmed, Russian airlines carried just over 95 million passengers in 2022, with 82% being domestic flights. Compared to the year 2021, the volume of air transportation recovered by 86%, in the international segment – by 74.4%, in the domestic segment – by 88.8% of the figures for 2021.
It is also interesting that the passenger traffic at airports sank much less than that of airlines. A total of 185.3 million passengers used the services of Russian airports in 2022, which is only 10% less than a year earlier.
Moreover, in the international segment, the number of passengers even increased by 550 thousand people, amounting to 30 million passengers. It can be assumed that this effect was achieved due to the presence of foreign air carriers in the Russian market.
As of March 2023, according to the Federal Air Transport Agency, direct flights from Russia are operated to 34 countries.
Among the countries with which air routes are maintained are the following: Azerbaijan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Armenia, Bahrain, Belarus, Venezuela, Egypt, Israel, India, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Qatar, China, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Kuwait, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, UAE, Oman, Seychelles, Serbia, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia.
At the same time, as the Federal Air Transport Agency added, flights to the Russian Federation are operated by 53 foreign airlines from 27 countries. Moreover, Russian carriers operate flights to 22 states, of which 14 airlines operate international passenger flights.
It is also visible that tourists contributed the most to air passenger traffic in 2022. 17.5% of all air passengers flying abroad went to the resorts of Antalya, Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh.
Judging by the ranking of the busiest international destinations, the share of tourists among international air passengers has at least doubled compared to 2019.
Russian airlines carried more than 6.5 million passengers in February 2023, which is 50,000 more than in February 2022. Passenger traffic of Russian airlines increased for the first time in a year.
Last spring, the volume of air travel in Russia dropped by 20-30% in annual terms, in the summer – by 15-20%, and by January 2023, the decline was reduced to 10%.
Aeroflot increased passenger traffic by 21% by February 2022, to almost 1.5 million people, lagging behind February 2019 – 40%. The passenger traffic of Pobeda dropped by 17% by February 2022, to 850 thousand people, an increase by February 2019 is 36%. Rossiya Airlines transported 573 thousand people, adding 13% to last year and almost catching up with the results of February 2019. The company stated that the results are due to an increase in seat occupancy on domestic routes by 11.3% and the opening of “transportation hubs” in Krasnoyarsk and Sochi.
The S7 airline transported just over 1 million people, showing a decrease of 9% by February 2022 and an increase of 40% by 2019 (from 744 thousand). In the summer season, the company plans to increase passenger traffic by expanding the route network, in particular from Irkutsk, and increasing the number of international flights. Ural Airlines grew by 12% by February 2022 and 2% by February 2019, to 525 thousand people.
