Business Watch
Airlines & Airports (63)
Vladivostok Air Deputy General Director Dmitry Tyshchuk has announced that the airline plans to resume its seasonal summer service between Anchorage, Alaska, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russia, in July, 2012. During this first season, the service will operate once per week from mid-July until mid-September. It is hoped a successful 2012 season will justify expansion of the service in 2013.
Vladivostok Airport, newly revamped for the 2012 APEC Summit, has been granted Open Skies status by the Federal Transport Minitsry, according to Kommersant newspaper. This opens the way for new carriers to pick up and drop off passengers and cargo without bilateral agreements.
For the six million inhabitants in the the Far East Federal Region it is a welcome boost to the area's air commuinications. The region has been starved of direct flights to South East Asia and the East Asia which lie to the south of the region and Canada and Alaska to the east.
Aeroflot has resumed services to Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) on 30 October, making it the second Vietnamese route the Russian SkyTeam airline operates from its Moscow Sheremetyevo (SVO) hub after flights to Hanoi. Flights on the new route are operated twice-weekly with 218-seat 767-300ER aircraft. The last time Aeroflot operated the route, which connects with the second of its alliance partner Vietnam Airlines’ hubs, was in 2003. Indirect competition comes from Vietnam Airlines, which notably serves Moscow Domodedovo four times weekly. Last winter, the route was also served by Transaero.
(Anna Aero)
For the first time the 6.7 million residents of Russia's huge Federal Far East District can fly direct to Hong Kong and Singapore. The twice weekly route was opened on October 21 this year (2011) by Vladivostock Air, the largest airline in the region.
Locally known as VladAir the carrier has served destinations in neighbouring mainland China and Korea for a number of years but this autumn has been spreading its wings to Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Delpasar in Bali.
By next week, rapidly growing Ural Airlines will have phased out all of its Russian aircraft as its last Tu-154 aircraft operates this weekend. The airline will then operate an all-Airbus fleet of 13 A320s and 9 A321s (Source: CH-Aviation.ch). It also states that it plans to begin operating A330 aircraft next year and by 2015, Ural Airlines intends to have a total fleet of more than 30 aircraft.
Ural Airlines ranks as Russia’s sixth-largest airline by scheduled seat capacity. At its home airport, Ekaterinburg Koltsovo Airport (SVX), the airline dominates with a 40% share of seats, but the airline’s seat capacity on offer out of its second-largest airport, Moscow Domodedovo (DME), is only 14% lower.
Transaero has expanded its Moscow Domodedovo (DME) network with two new routes in the past week. On 22 September, the Russian airline connected its hub at the Russian capital with the capital of Spain, Madrid (MAD).
The route is serves three times weekly with 122-seat 737-300s, competing with Iberia’s 16 flights a week and the Spanish airline’s Russian oneworld partner S7’s also three weekly flights. Indirect competition also comes from Aeroflot’s daily flights from Moscow Sheremetyevo.
Two days later, on 24 September, Transaero launched a weekly service to Amman (AMM), the capital of Jordan, from Domodedovo. The route, which competes with Royal Jordanian’s three weekly flights, is operated interchangeably with 101-seat 737-500s and 122-seat 737-300s.
Wizz Air’s Kiev base now serves 12 destinations with addition this week of Barcelona (Girona) and Valencia.
When Wizz Air first entered the Ukrainian market in July 2008, it focused on domestic services, and operated with just one aircraft from a base at Kiev’s Borispol airport. International services began to London Luton in December 2008, followed in January 2009 by further services to Cologne/Bonn, Dortmund, Katowice and Oslo Torp.