Russia’s airlines (Aeroflot, Transaero, UTair) and airports (Moscow DME, SVO, VKO and St Petersburg) growing fast

Russian routes rewarded with great cakes. easyJet, Alitalia and UTair have all started new services to/from Russian airports in the first few months of 2013, helping the country's four biggest airports (three in Moscow and St. Petersburg) to all report healthy, double-digit passenger growth.

Russia’s leading airports reported impressive growth in 2012. Moscow Domodedovo Airport remained the country’s leading airport, handling 28.2 million passengers, an increase of 9.6% on 2011. Closing the gap in second place was Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport, where passenger numbers increased 16.5% to reach just over 26 million. In third place, St Petersburg Pulkovo Airport grew by 16.1% to almost 11.2 million passengers, while Moscow Vnukovo Airport was the fastest-growing of the top four, with an 18.3% increase in demand to 9.7 million. These four airports alone account for around 60% of all Russian airport traffic.

Source: Innovata / Diio Mi data for w/c 12 August 2013 and w/c 13 August 2012

The airports ranked fifth to fifteenth by weekly seat capacity, if combined, are still smaller than either of Moscow’s two leading airports.

Moscow Vnukovo fastest-growing of the ‘big four’

According to airline schedule data for this August (the busiest month at Russian airports), seat capacity across the nation’s airports is estimated to be up around 9.4%. Examining the performance of the 15 busiest airports for scheduled services reveals that Vnukovo is once again the fastest-growing of the big four airports.

Source: Innovata / Diio Mi data for w/c 12 August 2013 and w/c 13 August 2012

Among the top 15 airports, Vnukovo’s capacity growth rate of 20.1% is beaten only by Rostov, where the number of weekly seats is up just under 27%. All of the top 15 report year-on-year capacity growth. Although Domodedovo retains its lead ahead of Sheremetyevo in terms of both weekly departing flights, and weekly seat capacity, if sector length flown is taken into account, Sheremetyevo has overtaken Domodedovo since last summer to be the leading Russian airport in terms of weekly ASKs (not that this is a measure normally used to compare airports).

Russian airlines and airports report rapid growth in first quarter of 2013

Setting anna.aero’s data elves the task of revealing some interesting statistics about what has actually happened in the first three to four months of 2013, unearthed the following facts:

• Aeroflot has reported a 20.1% increase in passenger numbers in the first quarter of 2013. Average seat load factor was up 3.3 percentage points to 77.0%.
• Transaero Airlines has reported a 23.6% increase in passenger numbers in the first four months of 2013.
• UTair has reported a 10.9% increase in passenger numbers in the first four months of 2013.
• Moscow Domodedovo Airport has reported a 16.3% increase in passenger numbers in the first quarter of 2013. Domestic traffic is up 20.0%, while demand for international flights is up 13.8%.
• Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport has reported an 11.1% increase in passenger numbers in the first quarter of 2013.
• St Petersburg Airport has reported an 11.6% increase in passenger numbers in the first quarter of 2013.
• Moscow Vnukovo Airport has reported a 15.8% increase in passenger numbers in the first four months of 2013. Domestic traffic is down 2%, but demand for international flights is up 63%.

easyJet starts London and Manchester services to Moscow Domodedovo

Back in March, easyJet launched its first ever flights to Russia, by introducing services to Domodedovo from both London Gatwick Airport and Manchester Airport. The airline is one of several non-Russian/CIS carriers to launch new international routes to Russian airports so far in 2013.

Other new services slated to start before the end of the year, are additional new routes from Aegean Airlines, Air One and flydubai (to Krasnodar, Rostov, and Volgograd), as well as new services from Icelandair (to St Petersburg from the beginning of June), and SWISS (Geneva to St Petersburg starting in mid-July).