MOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev goes to the city of Samara in the Middle Volga area on Tuesday where he will chair a conference on measures of support to passenger air travel in Russia, the government press service said.
According to Russia’s Federal Service for Civil Aviation, Russian airlines transported 93.1 million customers in 2014. Last December, the number of customers grew 6.2%.
On the face of it, the number of customers on international routes fell 5.7% to 2.72 million, primarily because of a 7.7% shrinkage of clientele on flights to and from destinations outside the CIS.
In contrast, passenger travel between Russia and the CIS grew 1.7% during the year and 17.6% to 3.55 million customers in December.
Travel on local routes shrank 21.4% to 124,000 customers. Seat load factor reduced, too - by 1.1% to 72.7% on the average across the industry.
The conference will bring together Deputy Prime Ministers Arkady Dvorkovich and Dmitry Rogozin, Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov, the director of the Federal Service for Civil Aviation, Alexander Neradko, as well as top executives of airlines and airports.
Dmitry Medvedev will also be taken around a new passenger terminal of Samara’s Kurumoch international airport.
The airport that was commissioned in 1961is the largest air hub in the Middle Volga area, with a network of routes linking it to dozens of destinations in Russia, former Soviet republics and foreign countries.
The controlling stake in the airport belongs to Renova group of companies owned by businessman Viktor Vekselberg.
The airport has seen a sizable reconstruction and modernization in recent years.