Return flight delayed

Despite the announced completion of partial mobilization in Moscow and the Moscow region, citizens are in no hurry to return to Russia from abroad. As Kommersant found out, ticket services and airlines did not record an increase in demand for flights from Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and other countries, where, according to unofficial data, hundreds of thousands of Russians left after September 21. There is still an increased demand for a number of flights from Moscow, and prices there are up to two times higher than those back. At the same time, two airlines and one aggregator noticed an increase in traffic by 10-30% from Armenia, which they explain with the low cost of the flight and the transit flow from Europe.

The statement of the authorities on October 17 about the completion of mobilization in Moscow and the Moscow region did not contribute to the mass return of Russians to their homeland. As the interlocutors in the airlines told Kommersant, there was no increase in the loading of aircraft from abroad to Moscow anywhere except Armenia. The Russians flew away en masse after 21 September. Then, against the backdrop of a sharp surge in demand with a limited list of available destinations, tickets to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan especially rose in price (see “Kommersant” dated September 28). According to Forbes sources, from 700 thousand to 1 million people left the Russian Federation.

“There is currently no growth in passenger traffic from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in the direction of Russia,” Ural Airlines told Kommersant. The Aeroflot group, S7, Utair, Azimuth, Red Wings, Azur Air and other airlines actively flying abroad refrained from official comments. Since the beginning of the week, there have been no significant changes in demand for trips both to the capital and to other Russian cities from abroad, Kommersant was confirmed in the OneTwoTrip service, and interest in flights abroad remained at the level of the previous week.

Armenia was the only exception. As a source in one of the airlines told Kommersant, on October 18-20, sales for Yerevan-Moscow flights for the week ahead increased by 30% compared to sales on October 11-13.

“This is a serious leap, although three days is too short a period to conclude that Muscovites began to return precisely after the words of Sergei Sobyanin,” he said. A 10% increase in traffic from Yerevan was recorded in one more airline and by 27% in one of the aggregators.

Kommersant’s interlocutors in the industry explain this dynamics by the lowest cost of a ticket from Armenia to Russia in comparison with other countries. At the time of publication, tickets for direct flights Yerevan-Moscow with a departure on October 21-22 were available from Aeroflot, Utair, Red Wings and IrAero from 9.5 thousand rubles. with luggage. This factor of affordability could encourage some of the passengers to return to the Russian Federation, one of Kommersant’s interlocutors argues. A direct flight from Moscow to Yerevan is now in the same range (from 10 thousand), for comparison: on the evening of September 21, these tickets were sold from 150 thousand rubles. An employee of another airline believes that transit traffic from Europe could contribute to the growth of passenger traffic from Armenia: “Flying from France and Germany to Moscow is cheaper through Yerevan than Istanbul.”

However, tickets from Istanbul to Moscow on October 21-22 also started from 10 thousand rubles. But the cheapest flight to Turkey, due to higher demand, would cost at least twice as much: from 19 thousand rubles. from S7 to 39 thousand from Aeroflot.

The cheapest return to Moscow with luggage from Dubai in the next two days will cost 41-46 thousand rubles. The only direct ticket for Friday at Aeroflot remained for 64 thousand rubles. The cheapest tickets to Kazakhstan for September 21 soared in price from 25 thousand rubles. up to 165 thousand. Now you can return to Moscow from Astana for 14 thousand rubles. without transfers.

The growth of “return” traffic after the “mobilization” surge in airlines is not expected.

Some interlocutors of Kommersant cite as an example a sharp increase in transportation abroad in the first weeks after the start of the special operation on February 24. “Then the flow from Russia concentrated in two weeks, and back the depth of bookings stretched for a longer period,” says one of Kommersant’s sources. The two airlines also noted that in early spring and now they have noticed a significant proportion of passengers with animals, while in the opposite direction there was no increase in pet transportation. “Perhaps this was the category of citizens who flew to other countries for permanent residence,” the source clarifies.

Based on the number of transactions for the sale of insurance policies along with air tickets, since the end of February, the growth of outbound passenger traffic lasted about two weeks, confirms Dmitry Migachev, director of the passenger insurance department at AlfaStrakhovanie. After the decline in the main peak of demand until the end of April, sales were significantly lower than in the same period a year earlier. Passenger traffic was spurred on by air subsidies and ticket sales as the holiday season kicked off in May, making it difficult to track the share of “return traffic” in that dynamic, he says.

Aigul Abdullina