Aviation News

With the start of the ski season, S7 Airlines launched 2 regular flights from Moscow to Turin in January 2012. Most seats have been chartered to Ascent Travel (part of Hotelplan, a leading ski specialist tour operator). Other key players continue to use foreign carriers and organize their own charters to ski resorts, with Jet Travel and PAC Group using Wind Jet to fly to Italy. Pac Group also has their own charters to Turin and Verona. There is an expected 15% increase in flights to Italian ski resorts this winter season.

The leading ski destinations, according to Jet Travel, are Italy and Switzerland. For Ascent they are Italy and France and for Pac Group, the leaders are Italy, Austria, France and Switzerland. In order to diversify their choice of ski destinations both Ascent and Pac have started to sell ski tours to Scandinavia.

To meet the growing demand for Switzerland as a ski and New Year destination, Swiss Air increased the no. of flights from Moscow and St-Petersburg to Zurich over the New Year holiday period, offering 26 extra flights.

As of the Spring 2012, Brussels Airlines will increase the no. of flights between Moscow and Brussels from 10 to 13 times per week.

From December 2011, Air Arabia increased the no. of flights from Moscow to Sharja from 3 to 5 times per week, making it a daily flight in the near future. In October 2011, Air Arabia started regular flights to this UAE from Moscow and Yekaterinburg. In 2010, 200,000 Russians visited Sharja, and the no. is expected to increase. Air Arabia also plans to add Kazan to the list of destinations in Russia, and make flights from Moscow several times a day in future.

As of March, 2012, Lufthansa will move 2 out of 6 flights Moscow - Frankfurt to Vnukovo airport. It is Moscow's 3rd international airport, but it's rapidly developing. As of June 2012, all LH flights from Moscow to Berlin will be from Vnukovo, there will be 12 flights a week in total.