Aeroflot reveals top destinations for the first half of 2024

:: Aeroflot

Russia’s leading airline Aeroflot has revealed the list of its most popular and fastest growing routes based on the analysis of is operational performance in the first six months of 2024.

DOMESTIC DESTINATIONS

In the first six months of the year Aeroflot carried the record number of passengers on its own flights within Russia – 9.8 million, which is a 26% improvement on the same period of 2023, but also exceeds the January through June results of the pre-pandemic 2019 by impressive 15%.

All routes, which make up the list of Aeroflot’s top destinations, have demonstrated record traffic numbers in the airline’s recent history. After the COVID and the restrictions imposed by the western sanctions, Russia’s flag carrier is consistently increasing its domestic traffic, fostering tourism and business links between Russian regions.

In domestic segment, Aeroflot alone (without its subsidiary airlines Rossiya and Pobeda’s data factored in) carried 6.3 million passengers in 6M of 2022, then 7.8 million for the same period of 2023 and finally 9.8 million passengers in 2024.

The route from Moscow to Sochi, Russia’s key Black Sea resort, tops the list of domestic favorites, used by 863,300 passengers. It outperformed the route between the country’s two major cities– Moscow and Saint Petersburg, which resulted second busiest with 786,225 passengers. Notably, combined with subsidiary airline Rossya’s traffic, the route generated the record number of 1.499 million passengers. June 1 marked the launch of Aeroflot-Shuttle program, a unique venture for Russian commercial aviation, for quick and seamless connection between two cities. Another route, which generated traffic in excess of 500,000 passengers, was between Moscow and Kaliningrad, Russia’s western enclave.

TOP DOMESTIC ROUTES BY PASSENGER TRAFFIC:

Moscow ⇆ Sochi (863,300 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Saint Petersburg (786,200 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Kaliningrad (502,800 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Yekaterinburg (463,200 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Mineralnye Vody (418,600 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Vladivostok (418,200 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Kazan (371,700 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Ufa (329,400 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Samara (320,100 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Chelyabinsk (299,700 passengers)

On two domestic routes the traffic more than doubled – Moscow-Kirovsk (+114%) and Moscow-Penza (+110%), whilst Moscow-Murmansk got close to the same growth rate (+97%). The only route outside Moscow, which made it to the top growth list, was Yekaterinburg-Sochi (+54%).

TOP DOMESTIC ROUTES BY GROWTH RATE (compared to the first half of 2023)

Moscow ⇆ Kirovsk (+114%, 51,800 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Penza (+110%, 47,500 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Murmansk (+97%, 233,600 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Grozny (+83%, 88,200 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Chelyabinsk (+79%, 299,700 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Orenburg (+72%, 184,400 passengers)

Москва ⇆ Novosibirsk (+54%, 220,000 passengers)

Yekaterinburg ⇆ Sochi (+54%, 82,600 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Novokuznetsk (+49%, 72,800 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Kemerovo (+48%, 78,900 passengers)

INTERNATIONAL DESTINATIONS

In the first half of 2024 Aeroflot alone carried 4.2 million passengers on international routes, up 34.1% on the same period last year.

The three most popular destinations in the airline’s international network were Istanbul, Phuket and Dubai. In the CIS countries, the route between Moscow and the Armenian capital Yerevan topped the list.

TOP INTERNATIONAL ROUTES BY PASSENGER TRAFFIC:

Moscow ⇆ Istanbul (320,100 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Phuket (245,200 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Dubai (236,900 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Antalya (229,400 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Yerevan (227,300 passengers)

Traffic on routes to China demonstrated the highest growth rates. Also, traffic between the capitals of Russia and Belarus increased by 1.4 times.

TOP INTERNATIONAL ROUTES BY GROWTH RATE (compared to the first half of 2023)

Moscow ⇆ Guangzhou (3x, 73,600 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Beijing (2.5x, 66,100 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Sharm-el-Sheikh (1.4x, 160,300 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Minsk (1.4x, 204,900 passengers)

Moscow ⇆ Tehran (1.3x, 14,300 passengers)