At the end of September 2020, Russian airlines carried 8.76 million passengers, which is 31.7% less than in the same period a year earlier. This was announced on Thursday, October 29 by the Federal Air Transport Agency.
Domestic traffic increased by 6.8%, to 7.46 million passengers, while international traffic decreased by 77.7%, to 1.3 million.
At the same time, if in 2019 10.83 million passengers were transported between Russia and the CIS countries, then this year – only 2.74 million, which is 25% of the traffic a year earlier.
In Russia, international passenger air travel stopped in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August-September, the authorities allowed flights to several cities in Turkey, London, Zanzibar, Geneva, Dubai, Cairo, the Maldives, Seoul, Minsk, Bishkek and Nur-Sultan. Flights to Cuba and Serbia became possible from mid-October, and communication with Japan will resume from November.
Flights are still possible only from 11 cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, Samara, Vladivostok, Grozny, Krasnoyarsk, Ufa.
In May, the government decided to allocate 23.4 billion rubles from its reserve fund to support airlines affected by the coronavirus. At the end of September, it became known about the plans of the Cabinet of Ministers to additionally support regional air carriers.