UTair traffic grew 15% in March

The carrier's international passenger figures grew faster than domestic traffic (Alex Polezhaev / Wikipedia)

Russia’s UTair Airlines carried 526,100 passengers in March, up 14.5% on the same month last year. The carroer’s traffic growth was lower than the sector’s average of 17.7%, which rode the wave of the post-crisis recovery, and even lower compared to Utair’s February year-on-year growth of 22%.

The carrier’s international traffic grew 35.7%, against 11% for domestic traffic. The airline does not disclose the breakdown in absolute figures. UTair’s seat load factor increased 1.8 percentage points to 68.7%.

Commenting on the airline’s March results, Alexey Budnik, the passenger division president, said the airline attracted passengers through implementing a new airfare policy, which led to a reduction in the average ticket price, and also by enabling a number of special features, such as open tickets.

UTair’s overall 2016 traffic reached 6.654 million passengers, up 20.1% on 2015. The carrier managed to climb above the red line and posted a net profit of 589.7 million rubles ($10.5 million).