ROUTES SILK ROAD: Novosibirsk Airport Reports Rise in First Half Passenger Numbers

For the first six months in 2014, Russia’s Novosibirsk International Airport handled 1,776,170 passengers, a growth of 8.6 per cent compared to the same period in 2013, it has revealed. The growth was dominated by an expansion in the domestic market where traffic grew 11.8 per cent to 1,055,579 passengers, with international demand growing at a lesser rate of 4.3 per cent to 720,591 passengers.

In June 2014, monthly passenger traffic increased by 12.3 per cent compared to the same month last year to 386,164 passengers with 238,729 flying on domestic routes (up 16.4 per cent) and 147,435 on international services (up 6.1 per cent). Igor Leontiev, deputy commercial director passenger traffic development and head of the aviation marketing department at Tolmachevo International Airport in Novosibirsk told The HUB Daily on the sidelines of the Routes Silk Road forum in Tbilisi, Georgia that the improving operating results could be heavily attributed to opening of the new routes and additional flight frequencies on the existing ones as well as employment of larger capacity aircraft to operate flights during peak seasonal demand.

According to the Leontiev, the highest growth in June 2014 was recorded to Simferopol (3.5 times higher as compared to 2013), while other Russian destinations witnessed significant passengers increases, including St Petersburg (up 66 per cent), Sochi (up 62 per cent), Irkutsk (up 61 per cent) and Anapa (up 53 per cent).

Among CIS destinations, the the most rapidly growing were Shymkent (up 49 per cent), Ferghana ( up 41 per cent), Osh (up 30 per cent), Almaty (up 26 per cent) and Tashkent (23 per cent), while in wider international markets the largest growth was seen at Harbin (up 97 per cent), Rhodes (up 89 per cent), Cam Ranh (up 66 per cent), Ho Chi Minh (up 58 per cent) and Prague (up 48 per cent).

In the past month Russian carrier Orenair has inaugurated flights from Novosibirsk to Dusseldorf and Hannover; Kazakhstan carrier SCAT has introduced a twice weekly CRJ200 link to Ust Kamenogorsk; S7 Airlines has boosted frequencies on its route to Simferopol; Transaero Airlines has started using Boeing 747-400 and 777-200 widebodies on flights from Moscow, while freight carrier Cargolux has increased the number of technical stops performed by the airline for refueling its flights from Zhengzhou, China to Luxembourg from 14 to 16 a week from June 14, 2014.