More than 60 per cent of Russia’s air passengers carried by Aeroflot and S7

In May S7 Group's traffic growth rate hit a five-month record (S7)

Russia’s two largest airline groups of Aeroflot (which consists of the title carrier, Rossiya Airlines, low-cost carrier Pobeda and Aurora) and S7 Group (S7 Airlines and Globus) were collectively responsible for 5.745 million passengers, accounting for 62 per cent of all passengers served by Russian carriers last month.

In total in May, according to Russian aviation regulator Rosaviatsiya’s latest preliminary figures, the country’s airlines carried a total of 9.3 million passengers.

Furthermore, S7 Airlines, which served 1.3 million passengers in the month, hit a five-month record high with a traffic growth rate of 10.8 per cent over the same month in 2017, up from 10.4 per cent in April, 8.4 per cent in March and 7.5 per cent in February.

Notably, S7’s international passenger numbers grew at a faster rate of 14.2 per cent and reached 346,000 passengers in the period. The number of domestic passengers was up too, reaching 957,000, albeit at a slower growth rate of 9.6 per cent.

Two main drivers behind the growth have been the arrival of the carrier’s remaining Embraer 170s and a brand-new Airbus A320neo in May, and the launch of a number of new routes, both domestically (from Novosibirsk to Naym, Kogalym, Beloyarsky and from St Petersburg to Saransk) and international services (from Moscow to Antalya, Turkey and from Novosibirsk to Larnaca, Cyprus). The traditional long weekend breaks at the beginning of May also contributed to the increase in operational results.

In May, although Aeroflot Group’s growth slowed down somewhat to 8.2 per cent compared to 8.8 per cent in April, the trend remains positive compared to February’s 4.3 per cent. Last month also saw the group’s subsidiaries carrying some 4.4 million passengers collectively.

Contrary to S7 Group’s overseas growth trend, Aeroflot saw its domestic traffic grow faster than international, up 7.8 per cent (2.49 million passengers) against 6.5 per cent (1.96 million), respectively.