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Federal Passenger Company plans to carry over 5 mln passengers during New Year holidays

MOSCOW, November 21, 22:37 /ITAR-TASS/. The Federal Passenger Company (the subsidiary of the Russian Railways RZD) plans to carry about 5.4 million passengers in the New Year holidays time (December 26 - January 12), a drop of 5% on last year, Vladimir Kalyapin, the company’s deputy director general, told a news conference on Thursday.

He said the reason for the decrease in the passenger flow is the lowered economic growth “which affects Russian citizens’ paying capacity and, consequently, their spending on travel. “Besides, we take this year a more careful approach to the provision of supplementary trains and the frequency of their runs to ensure that they carry the maximum number of passengers both ways,” Kalyapin said.

The Federal Passenger Company prepares for the winter period and will put to use almost the entire rolling stock for New Year holidays time, he said.

Kalyapin said the Federal Passenger Company had worked out an optimum timetable for the holidays to carry passengers from Moscow and from St. Petersburg. “All the technological capacities for supplementary trains will be used,” he said.

Kalyapin said transportation would peak out on December 30, but there was also heavy booking this year for December 27, 28 and 29. “There will be no particular difficulties with passenger transportation in the New Year holidays time,” Kalyapin said. The Federal Passenger Company offers many routes to tourists. There will be Moscow-Nice, Moscow-Prague and Moscow-Warsaw trains, he said, adding that tourist trains will be departing not only from Moscow, but also from St Petersburg.