Ural Airlines launches EIGHT routes from Moscow Zhukovsky

Ural Airlines inaugurated eight domestic routes from Moscow Zhukovsky on 18 October, an important development for the airport which has, until now, been overwhelmingly international.

Ural Airlines began eight domestic routes from Moscow Zhukovsky on 18 October, with 54 weekly departures in all.

As 94% of Zhukovsky’s seats were international last year, OAG data reveals, this is an especially important development.

If all of Moscow’s seats to these eight destinations are combined, St Petersburg is the Russian capital’s top domestic route, Sochi second, Kazan eighth, Perm 16^th, Volgograd 17^th, Voronezh 32^nd, Arkhangelsk 34^th, and Nizhnevartovsk 41^st.

Zhukovsky is Moscow’s fourth airport. Having opened for passenger service in 2016, it had almost 1.8 million seats in 2019.  Ural Airlines was by far the top carrier with a three-quarter share.

Despite being just 22 miles from central Moscow, Zhukovsky is not technically a Moscow airport.  It falls outside of the capital for bilaterals, meaning it’s typically easier to launch new international services. This will form an important part of the airport’s future, as we see below.

Read more: FlyArystan’s CEO told us that “Zhukovsky is a simple, inexpensive, low-cost airport”.

Route summary

Targeting “very popular tourist destinations [in Europe] for Russian citizens”

We chatted with Pavel Mandazhi, Zhukovsky’s Regional Head of Sales, about the airport’s development.

“Before the pandemic, we had the following points in Europe: Rome, Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest, and Minsk.

Read more: Zhukovsky was Belavia’s joint fourth-largest route in September.

“On the other side, served Tel Aviv, Almaty, Nur Sultan, Tashkent, Dushanbe, Bishkek, and more.

“What we saw was transfer traffic being generated between our points in the Middle East/Central Asia and Europe.

“Our goal now is to add more points in Europe with considerable traffic to/from Moscow, like Paris, Nice, Milan, Geneva, Athens, Heraklion, Burgas, and Varna.

“These are very popular tourist destinations among Russian citizens and the capacity from Moscow is limited due to current bilateral agreements.

“As Zhukovsky is not an airport of Moscow, but an airport of Zhukovsky city, it is free of traffic rights for both Russian and foreign carriers on these routes.

FlyArystan’s CEO described Zhukovsky to us as: “a simple, inexpensive, low-cost airport”. Combined with being outside of Moscow’s bilateral system yet located for the capital, especially with coming road infrastructure development, the airport should have a bright future. Perhaps especially if it can attract an aggressive, highly competitive LCC.

China and more domestics targeted for future

Mandazhi continued: “Another goal is to get routes to various secondary points in China, such as Nanjing, Jinan, Fuzhou, Hefei, Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, and others.

“These points generate considerable Chinese tourist flows to Moscow and Europe (including points we already have and seek to get).

“Finally, we work on developing our domestic network seeking to get flights to major Russian cities, like Yekaterinburg, Samara, Novosibirsk, Ufa, Omsk, and others.”

Zhukovsky’s eight domestic routes in orange, with Mandazhi’s sought-after others in yellow.