Lufthansa adds 85 flights to Russia for FIFA 2018
Lufthansa Group has scheduled 85 additional flights to Russia during the FIFA 2018 Wolrd Cup this summer, increasing its capacities by 8%, Dirk Grossman, sales director for Russia announced. These flights with the total seating capacity for 18,000 passengers will be distributed equally between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The group’s subsidiaries Swiss and Brussels Airlines will also offer charter flights for football fans to Kaliningrad, Sochi, Samara, Rostov and possibly other cities as well.
Demand for air travel to Russia this summer season has doubled so the German airline made the decision to operate widebody aircraft on some of the flights. This includes Lufthansa’s additional daily flight from Frankfurt to Moscow on Airbus A330-300 in June and July.
Four of the group’s airlines – Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines и Brussels Airlines currently fly to just three destinations in Russia – Moscow, St. Petersburg and Krasnodar, using Airbus A320 family aircraft.
Lufthansa Group also has access to a widespread regional network within Russia thanks to a special prorate agreement with S7 Airlines, Russia’s second largest carrier, which was signed in December 2017. Now passengers from 20 Russian cities can travel via Moscow and Lufthansa’s hubs in Germany using through fares. Dirk Grossman told Russian Aviation Insider that the advantage of the transfer fare is that the airline is responsible for getting a passenger to his/her final destination should the passenger be late for boarding.
In 2017 the group’s airlines carried 1.2 million passengers on flights to and from Russia, up 21% on the previous year. The share of transfer passengers reached 77%.
The group’s total traffic reached 130 million passengers last year, exceeding the 2016 results by 18.5%. Its profits climbed 70%, and revenues increased 12.4% compared to 2016.
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