FATA updates Russian traffic figures for April

The agency reports a 25% growth in passenger traffic (Leonid Faerberg / Transport-Photo)

Russian airlines saw their combined passenger traffic grow 24.8% in April to 7.44 million people, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (FATA) has reported. The updated report reveals a more optimistic trend than the original one, which was published in mid-May. At that time FATA put the April growth at 24.1% year-on-year to 7.39 million people.

International traffic was growing at a higher pace than domestic passenger numbers. Russian carriers transported a total of 2.86 million passengers internationally (+39.2%), including 0.56 million (+20.5%) to CIS destinations and 2.29 million (+44.7%) to other international destinations.

Domestic traffic stood at 4.57 million passengers, 17.3% up year-on-year. A total of 140,000 passengers were carried on regional flights (-2%).

Overall traffic growth in January through April comprised 20.8%. Russian carriers served 27.1 million passengers, including 10.35 million (+32.5%) on international and 16.79 million (+14.6%) on domestic routes.

All the five largest Russian airlines have seen their passenger traffic grow in 2017. National flag carrier Aeroflot and its subsidiary Rossiya Airlines reported +13.3% (9.64 million passengers) and +103.3% (2.771 million), respectively. S7 Airlines carried 2.66 million passengers in January-April (+1.2%); UTair Aviation, 2.03 million (+21.5%); Ural Airlines, 1/87 million (27.5%).

As reported earlier the most dynamic traffic growth results since the beginning of the year were demonstrated in April. January was the second best month for the Russian air transport industry with a 20.2% growth in traffic year-on-year. The FATA explains the April results by a 3% increase in the passenger load factor. Revenue loads grew by 3.4% to 69.9%.

The original FATA report for April also underestimated the growth in freight and mail traffic. It now turns out that the figure actually went up not by 17.4% but rather by 19%, to 94,200 tons. In the first four month of the year, the growth amounted to 23%, with 345,500 tons of freight and mail transported.