Minsk airport reports 20% traffic growth for 2017

The main Belarusian gateway benefited in part from transit passengers (Minsk Airport)

Passenger traffic at Belarus’s Minsk grew 20% year-on-year in 2017 to 4.115 million passengers, the airport reports.

The growth in the number passengers served by the country’s main hub declined gradually through the year, from around +30% year-on-year in Q1 to +26.9% in H1.

On December 30, 2017, Minsk’s base carrier Belavia served its three-millionth passenger of the year. The country’s flag carrier saw its overall 2017 passenger traffic rise 20.9% over the 2016 figure. Belavia has been increasing its traffic by around 20% annually for the past several years, due in part to the growth in the number of transit travelers (including because of the cessation of direct flights between Ukraine and Russia), and also thanks to the continuing expansion of its route network.

The airlines flying to Minsk include Aeroflot, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa, Uzbekistan Airways, AZAL, UTair Aviation, and Yamal Airlines (the latter started services to Belarus in late October 2017). The Russian destinations served include Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Krasnodar, and Nizhny Novgorod.

Traffic at Minsk has been growing steadily since 2003. The last 10 years saw the number of passengers served by the airport increase fivefold. In 2016, the airport served 23.2% more passengers year-on-year.