Russian domestic passenger air traffic starts a slow descent

:: Rosaviatsiya

Russia’s domestic air travel market shrank in July, in the midst of the high summer season. This is the first turn towards descent since the beginning of 2024, according to the data shared by the country’s aviation authorities.

Reporting to the Russian president on August 7, Transport minister Roman Starovoit said that in the first seven months of this year Russian airlines carried 47.9 million passengers on domestic routes, representing a 2.3 per cent growth on the same period of 2023. According to Rosaviatsiya for the first half of the year domestic traffic reached 38.7 million passengers, up 3.4 per cent year on year. Hence, in July the resulting number of domestic passengers was 9.2 million – which is a 1.44 per cent decline year-on-year. According to official statistics, Russian airlines’ collective traffic exceeded 9.3 million passengers in July last year.

July was the first month of decline in Russian domestic travel. Prior to that the growth rate ranged between 6.7 per cent in February and 1.7 per cent in May.

The decline in domestic traffic was partly offset by international segment. Russian airlines carried 2.5 million passengers in July, which is a 12 per cent improvement year-on-year. However, the growth has started to slow down, from 28 per cent in May 2024 and 20 per cent in January, February and June.

The resulting traffic numbers for July showed slowest growth rate since the beginning of the year – just 1.4 per cent. Calculations show that Russian airlines collectively served 11.7 million passengers in the month. According to official statistics, in February 2024 traffic (domestic and international combined) climbed 9.9 per cent, and in June – 6.1 per cent.

Starovoit also reported, that in January through June Russian airlines carried 62.9 million passengers – up 6.4 per cent on the same months of 2023.

Last month head of Rosaviatsiya Dmitriy Yadrov admitted he was anticipating a decline in 2024 total passenger numbers by 7 per cent, to 98.1 million passengers.