Foreign Airlines Double Passenger Traffic to Russia in January-September, Reports Say

 / Go to the mediabankA plane at the Sheremetyevo airport. / Go to the mediabankMOSCOW (Sputnik) – Foreign airlines managed to increase passenger traffic to Russia two-fold over the first nine months of 2022 to 8.7 million passengers, compared with 4 million for the same period last year, a Russian newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing a report by the Federal Agency for Air Transport (Rosaviatsiya).The total number of passengers on international flights to and from Russia increased to 21.7 million, up by 11%, in January-September. Meanwhile, the international passenger traffic of Russian airlines decreased by almost 16%, to 13 million people, the report said.Fifty foreign airlines are currently flying to Russia, with 39 of them operating passenger flights and six carrying cargo and passengers, a source in the Russian transport ministry told Izvestia. Flights are carried out by airlines from 26 countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Venezuela, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Qatar, China, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, the United Arab Emirates, Serbia, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Ethiopia.According to the Aviasales travel search engine, 69 foreign airlines from 49 countries operated in Russia in 2021.At the same time, Russian airlines carried out flights to 15 countries in September: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Israel, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, the UAE, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. In October, the Seychelles, Turkmenistan, Cuba and Venezuela will join the flight map.Rosaviatsiya intends to launch flights to Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Laos, South Korea and Thailand by the end of the year. Russian passengers, therefore, will be able to fly directly to 35 countries, with 24 of them carried out by domestic airlines.

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