Russian officials to use domestic airlines for business travel

A decree sined by President Vladimir Putin on September 30 obliges Russian officials to use Russain airlines for business travel purposes.

Alternatively, they may choose to fly any of the handful of carriers representing the other Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member nations (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan).

Public servants do have an option to fly foreign airlines on business trips, but only if their destinations are not served by Russian or EEU carriers, or if no tickets are unavailable from such carriers.

According to Rosstat (the Russian government statistics service), there were 789,500 federal-level public servants in the country in 2013.