air Transport

Yesterday Aeroflot - Russian Airlines presented its flight schedule for the spring-summer period. Judging by it, the airline wants to regain its leading position in the domestic Russian transportation market. Aeroflot will fight for routes that are currently controlled by regional airlines, despite the fact that the profitability of these flights in some cases is negative. For this reason, Aeroflot has reduced the number of international flights and curtailed charter programs.
Presenting the spring-summer schedule, which will begin on March 28, Aeroflot CEO Valery Okulov said that the airline had decided to regain lost positions in the domestic transportation market. Now Aeroflot ranks second after Sibir in the number of passengers carried within the country. To achieve this goal, Aeroflot plans to almost double the frequency of flights to the “most popular cities in terms of traffic flows” in Russia and open a number of new routes in Siberia.
In particular, Aeroflot is increasing the number of flights to St. Petersburg from 35 to 53 per week, and to Yekaterinburg and Krasnodar - from 12 to 21. In addition, Mr. Okulov announced the start of flights to Barnaul, Kemerovo, Tyumen, Surgut and Krasnoyarsk . However, Mr. Okulov admitted that to fulfill all the company’s plans there are not enough aircraft, primarily regional class ones. In the summer, Aeroflot will operate 72 aircraft, which, according to the head of the company, is clearly not enough. Due to a shortage of aircraft, Aeroflot completely stops flying to Lisbon, San Francisco, Ljubljana, Amman and Vilnius, and Arkhangelsk will lose Aeroflot services from Russian cities. Aeroflot has also practically curtailed its charter programs, booking planes only for flights to Spain and Greece.
The airline is trying to solve the problem of aircraft shortage by leasing them from Rossiya State Transport Company (in particular, its Yak-40 will fly to Lipetsk, and Tu-214 to Bombay). Mr. Okulov also announced that the airline has decided to purchase five Tu-154 airliners, four of which will be purchased from the Vnukovo aircraft repair plant.
Deputy General Director of the airline Lev Koshlyakov said that Aeroflot's new strategy is based on the principle of creating a wide network to deliver regional residents to flights operated by the airline from Moscow. “By creating our own network, we connect flights so that a person does not even think about switching to another company,” said Mr. Koshlyakov.
Aeroflot's competitors are skeptical about the national carrier's attempt to increase its presence in the domestic market. Thus, KrasAir press secretary Andrei Lipovetsky is convinced that Aeroflot will not be able to offer something in already established markets that will help it win new customers, “so there is only one way out for it - dumping.” Siberia Airlines considers Aeroflot's decision to actively develop flights on the domestic market "wrong and less profitable in terms of income." “On the contrary, we are developing international programs - for example, we are going to fly from Barnaul to Hannover, Munich, Antalya, and are also starting to implement a number of projects that will allow us to increase passenger traffic,” the Sibir press service told Kommersant.
And not everyone at Aeroflot itself supports the new strategy. A source close to the chairman of the board of directors of the airline, Alexander Zurabov, said that losses on some domestic routes reach up to 45%. “I think that the company’s management is refocusing on domestic flights, wanting to increase the company’s political weight in the eyes of the regional elite,” Kommersant’s interlocutor said.
“We are ready to lose some income in order to increase our share in the domestic market, which is now 10%,” State Duma deputy Alexander Lebedev, ex-president of the National Reserve Bank, which owns 28% of Aeroflot shares, explained to Kommersant. According to him, the gap in income from transporting passengers on international routes and within the country over the past three years has decreased from 200% to 50% and the profitability of the domestic market is steadily growing.
RINAT Kommersant-GIZATULIN

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 53 dated March 25, 2004, p. 15

Themes:

Activities of Aeroflot

Aeroflot deployed planes to Russia