Domestic airline traffic in Russia climbs for the first time in four months

:: Zhukovsky airport

In April 2025 Russian airlines carried 6.3 million passengers on domestic routes – a 1.3 per cent improvement year-on-year, the country’s aviation authority Rosaviatsiya reports. It was thus the first month so far this year, when domestic traffic exceeded the 2024 level.

In the three preceding months domestic traffic continuously declined – by 1.43 per cent in January, 4.65 per cent in February and 0.64 per cent in March. This resulted in a 1.0 per cent decline for the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year.

International traffic in April showed highest growth since the beginning of the year – 7.2 per cent on the same month of 2024. Russian airlines handled collectively 2.1 million passengers on international routes. The previous uptick of 5.7 per cent was registered in January.

In total, in January through April period international traffic climbed 3.25 per cent.

In the first four months of 2025 Russian airlines’ total traffic amounted to 31.2 million passengers, “which is in line with the same period of 2024,” Rosaviatsiya commented. According to more accurate figures used for internal reporting, the total traffic compared to January-April 2024 increased by roughly 40,000 passengers, or 1.3 per cent.