BUSINESS AVIATION IN RUSSIA
REGENERATION IN RUSSIA
Over the course of the past year, Russian Business Aviation has shown a remarkable ability to adapt to new economic challenges and fierce competition. Anna Nazarova reports
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lmost three years after the Russian economy collapsed, the country’s Business Aviation industry is well on the road to a full recovery. This regeneration is being led by the charter sector, which has historically been the driver for market development. When summarizing 2016, several trends are worth mentioning, including the partial redistribution of traffic in the country’s largest region – the Moscow Air Cluster. According to experts, the number of Business Aviation passengers (charter flights and business jet owners) was at about 128,000. This number is based on the largest ground handling companies (Vnukovo-3, A-Group Sheremetyevo, JetPort SPB, A-Group Pulkovo), brokers and business jet operators. The flight redistribution was registered mainly between two terminals: Vnukovo-3 and A-Group (Sheremetyevo). In 2015, Vnukovo-3 served 17,015 flights and 110,258 passengers, while in 2016 these numbers were 15,426 flights and 98,077 passengers. In parallel to this, the number of flights served by A-Group (Sheremetyevo) grew by 10% for the same period last year, with the number of passengers growing by 15% to reach 26,000 in 2016. Business jet brokers and operators are unanimous in their opinion that last year the Business Aviation charter market stabilized – and even managed to show a moderate growth of about 5%. This data is provided by Aim of Emperor group analysts, who deal with charter flights, business jet management and aircraft ground handling. The distribu-
AIRCREW
Teamline stewardesses represent around a quarter of the Russian Business Aviation crew.
30 - BART: JULY - AUGUST - 2017