Russian airlines’ traffic growth slows

Rossiya Airlines has been doing worse since the beginning of this year (Fedor Leukhin / Wikimedia.org)

Russian airlines’ traffic growth cotinues to slow down, reads the Federal Air Transport Agency’s February report. The country’s carriers served a total of 6.7 million passengers in the second month of 2018, or up 10.4% year-on-year. This compares to a 18.3% growth in February 2017.

The airlines also reported a 1.2 p.p. increase in the seat load factor to 79.6%. The cargo load factor grew 2.1 p.p. to 67.5%.

The five largest airlines by traffic remained unchanged from January, when S7 Airlines had regained its second position, leaving Rossiya Airlines behind.

Flag carrier Aeroflot served 2.272 million passengers in February (+2.9%); S7 Airlines, 0.706 million (+16.2%). The fourth and fifth places were expectedly taken by UTair Aviation and Ural Airlines with 0.541 million passengers (+14.9%) and 0.472 million (+19.9%), respectively.

Rossiya Airlines (an Aeroflot Group company) ranked third, being the only Russian airline to see its traffic shrink for the second month in a row. It served 0.567 million passengers, down 9.6% on February 2017, whereas in January its traffic slid 4% year-on-year. Rossiya’s freight also reduced in February, 3.3% to 71,380 tons.

By the end of the first two months in 2018, the number of passengers collectively carried by Russian airlines grew 12.4% to 14.318 million. The seat load factor increased 1.7 p.p. to 79.6%, and the cargo volumes grew 3.3% to 155,621 tons.