Published: 10/29/1997

Vnukovo Airlines has revealed statistics for the last eight months of this year. For the first time since the USSR collapsed, the company managed to increase its passenger traffic by 5% in comparison with the respective period last year. The rise came chiefly from greater co-operation with the large tourist agencies. At the height of the tourist season, Vnukovo Airlines made 20 charter flights weekly, mainly to Turkey, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Spain, Bulgaria and Malaysia. A good half of these were carried out not from Vnukovo airport, but from Sheremetievo, which is more friendly to passengers flying abroad. This year Vnukovo Airlines intends to exceedtwo million passengers on inter-CIS routes. To acheive that, the company will try to secure exclusive rights from local administrations for work on its traditional lines. The operator says it considers using Abakan, Yuzhno- Sakhalinsk, Tbilisi, Sochi and Simpferopol as hubs and refuelling points. Today, Vnukovo Airlines maintains scheduled flights to four CIS countries, namely the Ukraine (Simpferopol, Odessa), Georgia (Tbilisi), Armenia (Erevan), and Kazakhstan (Aktau). Inter-Russian routes are those to Kemerovo, Novi Urengoi, Nadym, Makhachkala, Kransnodar, Vladikavkaz, Blago-veshensk, Tomsk, Mirny, Murmansk and Ulan-Ude on the Tu-154 and Sochi, Norilsk, Min Vody, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Novosibirsk, Novi Urengoi, Igarka, Pevek and Nizhnevartovsk on the Il-86. On 12 August, Vnukovo Airlines received licences for flights to Arkhangelsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kurgan, Magadan, Petropavlovsk, Polyarny, Samara, Samarkand, St.Petersburg, Stavropol, Surgut, Tumen, Ust-Ilymsk, Ufa and Yakutsk. In September the company obtained licences to fly to Ekaternburg, Rostov-upon-Don, Salekhard, Tashkent and Alma-Ata. This has increased the number of destinations within the CIS to 67. (AL1097.4) (VK)

Article ID: 69