Share of foreign carriers on the Russian market decreases to 9.4%

Photo by Leonid Faerberg / transport-photo.com

The share of foreign carriers’ traffic in 2015 at Russian airports was at 9.4%, a decrease from 11.9% in the previous year, according to statistics announced by head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, Alexander Neradko, at this year’s National Aviation Infrastructure Show (NAIS 2016). Data provided to Russian Aviation Insider by the Transport Clearing House (TCH) confirms the conclusion.

According to Neradko, Russian airports served 159 million passengers in 2015. A spokesperson for the TCH, which is in charge of airport traffic statistics, clarified that in the case of domestic traffic, a correction needs to be applied – each passenger in the statistic is counted twice: first, at the departure airport and then again at the arrival airport. Thus, in the resulting traffic number, 105 million passengers make up the total domestic traffic (which should be divided roughly in half to correlate with the international traffic number) and another 39 million passengers make up Russian carriers’ international traffic. Foreign airlines carried 15 million passengers to and from Russia.

Thus, Russian airlines were accountable for 90.6% of passengers served by Russian airports in 2015. The remaining 9.4% is the share of foreign carriers on the Russian market.

In 2014, Russian airports served 157 million passengers, according to Interfax and Alexander Neradko. With all the intermediate calculations, Russian airlines’ share amounted to 88.1%, and international carriers, 11.9%.

This statistic reflects the evident trend of foreign airlines’ leaving the Russian market because of shrinking demand for international travel against the background of the economic downturn, devaluation of national currency and other factors.

International traffic on Russian airlines is shrinking as well; in 2015 the amount of passengers carried decreased by 15.8% to 39.508 million passengers.

According to FATA’s data, 95 international carriers offered flights to 390 destinations from Russia in 2015. At the same time, 27 Russian carriers served 440 international destinations.