Russian air traffic to set all-time record in 2017

FATA head Alexander Neradko (right) says 2017 air traffic in Russia will be well in excess of 100 million passengers (Leonid Faerberg / Transport-photo.com

By the end of this year, Russian carriers and international airlines will have carried a total of 160-170 million passengers on the country’s market, Alexander Neradko, head of the Federal Air Transport Agency (FATA), said in the opening speech at this year’s JetExpo exhibition in Moscow. The air trraffic will thus exceed the country’s population, for the first time in Russia’s post-Soviet history.

Another record is anticipated to be set by Russian airlines. According to FATA’s forecast, the country’s carriers will serve more than 100 million passengers this year, surpassing the previous all-time high of 93 million reached in 2014. After that the traffic went into a dive and continued to decline for almost two years. The market started to recover in late 2016, but only 88.6 million passengers were carried last year.

This year, Neradko noted, Russian airlines’ growth rate is expected to average between 20% and 25%. In January-July, traffic grew 21%.