| Aeroflot presented its summer schedule In the summer season of 2005, Russia's largest air carrier, Aeroflot, promises to sharply increase the frequency of flights on the most popular foreign routes. At the same time, the company's management plans a gradual increase in the cost of air tickets, which in general should amount to 5-7% for the year.
Despite the fact that production results in January and February were worse than expected, Aeroflot management hopes to fulfill the budget approved for 2005. Igor Desyatnichenko, deputy general director of the route network management company, said at a press conference yesterday that at the beginning of the year, the Russian passenger air transportation market experienced stagnation, provoked by the continued rise in aviation fuel prices since last year. According to him, in the country as a whole in January-February, passenger traffic decreased by 2% compared to the same period last year - to 3.75 million people. During this period, Aeroflot carried 50 thousand fewer passengers than it had expected, Mr. Desyatnichenko said. He noted that when calculating the budget for 2005, the company assumed that the volume of passenger traffic would increase by 17-20%. Aeroflot commercial director Evgeny Bachurin nevertheless said that so far the company's management does not see the need to revise the approved annual budget. He did not rule out that the issue of budget adjustments will have to be returned to based on the results of the first quarter.
Aeroflot’s “summer” schedule will operate this year from March 27 to October 29. During this period, the company will operate regular flights to 89 cities in 47 countries, including 34 points in Europe, 6 in America, 2 in Africa, 4 in the Near and Middle East, 10 in Asia, 7 in the CIS countries and 25 in Russia.
In the summer season of 2005, flights on 23 international airlines will be operated in accordance with code-share agreements with 19 foreign airlines - partners of Aeroflot as joint operation flights. In addition, Aeroflot will operate flights to 21 destinations in Russia and abroad on aircraft of its subsidiaries Aeroflot-Don and Aeroflot-Nord.
Aeroflot will continue its policy of increasing the frequency of flights on the most popular routes, by an average of 36%. Among the cities to which the company will fly more intensively than before are Paris, Rome, Milan, Sofia, Zagreb, Venice, Athens, Delhi, Mumbai, Bucharest, Shanghai, Beijing, Ulaanbaatar, Dubai, Beirut, Damascus, Sochi, Ufa , Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Kaliningrad, Mineralnye Vody, Bishkek, Tbilisi and Baku.
Evgeny Bachurin said that the company's production plans are hampered by the insufficient aircraft fleet. For this reason, in particular, he said, Aeroflot could not afford to create a subsidiary charter company, plans for which have been in the works for several years. “This year the charter program will be minimal,” said Mr. Bachurin, “we operate charter flights on a residual basis.” Mikhail KUKUSHKIN |
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