Rossiya Airlines sees overall passenger growth in 2025, international traffic declines

Alexey Pereslavtsev / Rossiya Airlines

Rossiya Airlines reported carrying 12.02 million passengers in 2025, marking a 4.4% year-on-year increase. This growth positioned Rossiya as the top performer within the Aeroflot Group, outpacing subsidiary low-cost carrier Pobeda (+0.7%) and the parent company Aeroflot, which saw a 1.8% decline in passenger numbers.

The growth is largely attributed to robust performance on domestic routes, fueled significantly by the “Shuttle” program on the key Moscow-St. Petersburg corridor. Launched in summer 2024, this program involved Rossiya taking over a number of Aeroflot’s flights on this trunk route, which now accounts for a substantial 20% of the airline’s total passenger traffic.

Domestic traffic rose 6.8% to 10.47 million passengers. In contrast, international traffic saw a 9.5% contraction, falling to 1.55 million passengers. Consequently, the share of domestic passengers within Rossiya’s total traffic mix grew to 87%.

Operationally, the airline increased its flight volume by 5.5% to 111,600 flights and achieved a record annual seat load factor of 89.2%, a 0.2 percentage point improvement year-on-year.

TOP 5 DOMESTIC ROUTES BY PASSENGER TRAFFIC:

• Moscow–St. Petersburg (2.4 million)
• Moscow–Kaliningrad (399,100)
• St. Petersburg–Kaliningrad (386,000)
• St. Petersburg–Sochi (305,000)
• St. Petersburg–Murmansk (267,900)

TOP 5 INTERNATIONAL ROUTES BY PASSENGER TRAFFIC:

• Moscow–Varadero, Cuba (114,900)
• Sochi–Istanbul, Turkey (112,200)
• Sochi–Yerevan, Armenia (92,300)
• St. Petersburg–Yerevan, Armenia (87,400)
• St. Petersburg–Almaty, Kazakhstan (83,200)