Russian airlines’ passenger traffic grew 7.9 per cent in January

:: Murmansk airport

Passenger traffic of Russian airlines in January 2024 amounted to 7.8 million, a 7.9% increase year-on-year, according to preliminary data from Rosaviatsia.

Continued sanctions pressure is the reason why the achieved figure is 12% lower than in the pre-crisis January 2020 (8.86 million passengers).

The top 5 largest carriers were Aeroflot, Pobeda, S7 Airlines, Ural Airlines and Rossiya. Their combined traffic grew by 10.5% compared to January 2023.

Aeroflot, LCC Pobeda and Rossiya form Aeroflot group. S7 Airlines and Ural Airlines are both privately run companies. S7 Airlines gave up second place it used to occupy to Pobeda, primarily due to capacity decrease caused by inability to maintain P&W GTF engines on its Airbus A321neos.

“The current situation in the Russian air transport market is characterized by passenger traffic growth. This trend is based on both recovering demand after the pandemic period and market adaptation to new realities, restructuring of Russian airlines’ operations in the domestic market, rapid development of local tourism,” commented Fyodor Borisov, head of the analytical center of the Civil Aviation State Research Institute.